


Your Love Has Shown Me Proof

by freshia



Series: things still given: Keith and Lance's twin-parenting (mis)adventures [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Humor, Keith and Lance meet their future adopted child, Kid Fic, M/M, Time Travel, i just wanted to write something that was pure cute honestly, schmoopy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8373805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshia/pseuds/freshia
Summary: “This situation is a bit more complicated than we initially realized.”
  Lance raises an eyebrow, but Pidge is the one to question that. “Define complicated.”  Allura takes no more time beating around the bush, “Well, I received a transmission. Keith and Lance--from the future, that is--would like to have their daughter back."or: Lance and Keith deal with a walking spoiler, in the form of a little girl who just wants to get back to her own home.





	1. i long to turn my path homeward

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to [tina](http://mayihavethisklance.tumblr.com/), because when i came to her and said "HELP ME COME UP WITH KLANCE BABY NAMES", she suggested klink and klank. because lance and keith apparently name their kids by playing scrabble.

Allura’s the one who spots her, first.

A child, a _human_ child, on board the Castle of Lions. Dark black bangs curl just above her eyes, a deep brown, and as soon as they make contact with Allura’s blue she’s already turned tail and taken back off down the hallway.

Allura is quick, but the little girl is faster--especially with that head start. She disappears somewhere down a long corridor, and Allura decides that maybe they should be taking care of _local_ problems before heading down to any more planets.

 

/

 

They’re all called to a meeting, where Allura has several video feeds of the little girl lurking around.

“How did she even get _on_ here?” Pidge asks, because it had been more than just a few days before any of them had docked off on any planets. “There’s nothing on the feed from before today?”

“No,” Allura answers, looking contemplative. “But she might have just now come out from hiding today. Perhaps she’s hungry, or thirsty.”

“Or maybe she’s a trick,” Keith says, eyeing the repeating feeds on-screen like they’re a ticking time bomb seconds from detonating. Allura frowns.

“I find it unlikely that any sort of Galra trick would just be running around the castle so blatantly,” she begins, “Or that it would wait so long to attack. But you’re right, and we should be cautious.” she pauses, looking around at each of the Paladins. “ _Still_ , though, this is a child we’re talking about. If any of you run into her, I need you to be careful, but _kind_.”

She stresses out the last word, shooting a look at Keith in particular. He glances away.

“Well then, emergency meeting dismissed. Paladins, I’d suggest everyone split up for now, and try to keep your eyes on the look-out.”

 

/

 

Hunk is the one who finds her next. Completely by _accident_ , he might add, because he had decided to take a break in the kitchen to get some food-goo before he went to go on some _literal_ kiddie scavenger hunt.

(The kiddie scavenged him out, instead, as it happened.)

She’s standing in the doorway, peeking her head around the corner, and when they make eye contact she doesn’t dart away.

Hunk sort of feels like some kind of child whisperer.

“... Hey,” he starts, and she freezes up for a second, looking at him in suspicion. “Are you hungry?”

She doesn’t move, but he can see her visibly relax. Carefully, Hunk puts down a bowl of food goo on the table and sits down across from it.

He waits.

She stares.

And slowly, _slowly_ , she comes forward and sits at the table.

“Sorry, it’s probably not exactly tasty, but you get used to the food goo after awhile,” Hunk says, voice low so he doesn’t scare her off. Instead of running off, she gives him a very confused look and shovels the goo into her mouth like she hasn’t eaten in forever.

“... Or, not.” he says, mildly surprised as she shovels another spoonful in. He doesn’t move, but she doesn’t seem concerned with him anymore anyway. Hunk admits, it’s been so long since he’s last seen a little kid that he can’t help but stare as they sit in the kitchen in silence.

Of course, he doesn’t get to stare for long. There’s never more than a few minutes peace with Lance around, and Lance chooses _just then_ to bust into the kitchen.

“Hunk! You found her!” he shouts (Lance does not know how to use a gentle, indoors-voice,), and at the sound of him the little girl’s eyes go wider than Hunk even thought _possible_. She stands up and attempts to make a dart for the exit, but Lance is _just_ faster than her and he sticks his arm out, efficiently grabbing her before she runs by.

“Ha! Got-- _ya--_ ” he says, pulling her to his chest so she can’t make another quick dash. “Man-- if you’re a Galra infiltrator you’re kind-- of pathetic-- _Stop squirming so much_!”

He’s struggling to hold her still as she fights her way out of his grasp. As if on cue, but probably just attracted by the commotion, the others come in and pause in the doorway.

“Lance! Don’t hurt her!” Allura snaps, and Lance gives an agitated noise, still struggling to hold her.

“I’m not _hurting_ her. I used to do this to all my younger siblings.” he says.

They all start to move toward the two of them, and the girl takes this opportunity to clamp her teeth down into Lance’s arm. He yelps and lets her go, dropping her ungracefully onto her feet, and she runs past the other Paladins to Shiro in the back. Latching onto his leg, she glares up at Lance and hides behind Shiro.

“Ow! What the-- Didn’t your parents teach you not to bite?” he asks, scowling right back at her. She sticks her tongue out, before ducking back behind Shiro’s leg.

Shiro’s looking down at her, in a complete loss. “Uh.”

When she doesn’t move out from behind his leg, Allura slowly approaches and drops down to her level, squatting as she rests her arms on her knees. The rest of the Paladins keep a healthy, althought still interested, distance.

“Hello,” she starts out, and does her best to give a comforting smile. The child doesn’t respond. “You don’t need to talk to me, but if you can understand me I’d really appreciate it if you nodded your head yes or shook your head no. Okay?”

She looks away from Allura for a moment, eyes darting toward where Keith and Lance stand next to each other. Lance is still rubbing the spot where she bit him. Slowly, she turns back toward Allura and, not making eye contact, nods.

“Excellent!” Allura says brightly, “Thank you for being honest. You seem very nice.”

Biting his arm isn’t exactly what Lance would call nice, but whatever. Allura continues, “Are you lost?”

The little girl chews on her lip at that question, like she’s not quite sure what the correct answer is. Finally, she gives a shrug.

“... Well, okay. Maybe you’re just confused.” Allura gives her a sympathetic smile. Everyone else in the room is completely quiet, focused on the interaction between the two. “Can you speak at all?”

Hesitantly, she nods.

“I see! That’s great. Would you mind telling us your name?”

“Cora--Corrinne.”

It’s _definitely_ the first time any of them had heard her talk. Her voice wavers a little bit as the words come out.

“Corrinne?” Allura smiles when she nods. “A very pretty name. How old are you?”

“Six.” Corrinne says, latching tighter onto Shiro’s leg. Allura’s smile falters for a moment, and Shiro clarifies--

“As in six years?”

She looks up at him and nods.

Allura stands up.

“Thank you, Hunk and Lance, for finding her.” She ignores the finger guns a wink Lance throws at her, turning back to Corrinne. “I’m going to go see if I can find any signals that suggest they’re looking for a very pretty, lost little girl. Would you like to come with me so that we can get you back home?”

At the word _home_ , Corrinne perks up and nods, letting go of Shiro and grabbing the hand Allura offers down to her. Allura beams, nodding toward the Paladins.

“Well then, we’ll be off. If anything happens, you know where to find me.”

At that, Corrinne gives a slight smile for the very first time. Everyone watches as Allura leads the little girl out of the room, but not before Corrinne turns her head and gives Keith and Lance one good, long stare, hand still being held by Allura.

They all stand in silence for a good few minutes after both Corrinne and Allura exit the room, before Shiro finally speaks up.

“I’m gonna go ahead and follow Allura. Just to be safe rather than sorry. Coran, are you coming?”

“Of course,” he replies, and they leave together. Pidge and Hunk are next--with Hunk grabbing another bowl of food goo for the road, and Pidge stating she needed check out an upgrade in her lion--and that left Keith, and Lance, alone.

“I thought you were good with kids,” Keith says, looking unimpressed. Lance scowls.

“I am good with kids! I was the one who caught her!”

“She _bit_ you, and she was shooting you death glares the entire time.”

Lance scoffs. “Excuse me? She was sending _you_ death glares the entire time. Or maybe it was both of us. Whatever, just because _one_ kid is a brat doesn’t mean I’m bad with kids.”

Keith rolls his eyes and heads for the door, frowning when he notices Lance following him.

“Where are you going?”

“To the training deck, where I know you’re headed.” he answers simply. Keith lets a small smirk play onto his lips as he scoffs.

“Fine.”

 

/

 

By now, Lance had gotten pretty good at hand-to-hand against Keith. Keith almost always still won, but it was a lot closer now-- and a lot more intense, by the end.

At this point, Lance can’t even remember why he started doing this at all. He wasn’t exactly one for exerting extra effort when it wasn’t required, but it probably started to try and keep up with Keith. For, you know. Their rivalry.

Yeah. “ _Rivalry_ ”.

(Lance can come to terms with feelings. Sometimes. It might _take_ awhile, but it _can_ happen.)

Keith takes advantage of Lance’s brief space-out as he gets caught up in his own thoughts, sweeps his feet out from under him and pins him to the ground. If this were a real fight, and Keith had his knife? Lance would be _dead_.

(That probably shouldn’t be as _hot_ as it is.)

Keith doesn’t get up right away, on top of Lance and catching his breath and when their eyes meet, for a moment, Lance almost makes some kind of stupid joke just to get _something_ out there. The atmosphere was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

_Fortunately_ , before Lance can get out anything idiotic, Allura’s voice comes over the Castle intercoms and breaks the silence.

“ _Paladins, please reconvene immediately_.”

Lance grins up at Keith, cocky smugness back. “You only won because I’m handicapped at the moment.” he weakly lifts up the arm where he was bitten earlier, and Keith rolls his eyes as he stands back up.

“Get over it. The kid didn’t even leave a teeth mark.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that it still hurt! Jeez, dude,” Lance climbs to his own feet and sends a wounded look toward Keith. Keith ignores him. “Man. I’m all gross and sweaty. Think Allura would be mad if I took a shower first--”

“ _No_ ,” Keith snaps, reaching over and tugging at Lance’s shirt. “I am not letting this meeting get postponed just because you don’t smell enough like Old Spice.”

Dramatically, Lance sighs and hangs his head.

“ _Fine_.”

 

/

 

When they all meet back up, Allura looks…

Conflicted.

Specifically, despite the way her gaze follows Lance and Keith as they walk in together, she all-out avoids looking at them when she begins speaking.

“We might have a slight problem,” she starts out, and Lance thinks Shiro might be the only one who isn’t groaning internally. They _always_ seem to have a problem. “This situation is a bit more complicated than we initially realized.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, but Pidge is the one to question that. “Define complicated.”

Allura takes no more time beating around the bush, finally settling her gaze on where Keith and Lance stood next to each other. “Well, I received a transmission. Keith and Lance--from the future, that is--would like to have their daughter back.”

Lance chokes on his own spit. He wheezes, thumping a fist against chest as all of the other paladins turn to face him-- _them_ , really--and, to his credit, Keith doesn’t seem to react at all.

Man, what Lance would give to get inside that guy’s head sometimes.

“Ex-cuse me?” Lance says, catching his breath. His eyes dart to the little girl’s figure next to Allura, and she pointedly ignores his gaze, looking down at her shoes instead.

His… _Daughter_?

“She’s from the _future_?” Pidge asks, voice both incredulous and curious. “Is that even possible?”

“It’s complicated,” Allura hurries out, before any more questions can be thrown at her, “I thought the technology was lost for good on Altea, but perhaps in the future we found some way to recover it. They figured out a way to contact me by transmitting a video message, but I’m afraid it’s one-way only.”

She moves slightly to the side, and taps a button on the ship’s control panel. A blown-up image of Lance’s face appears--although older. It’s hard to put an exact age, but he’d probably guess 30 or so.

(Lance would probably be impressed with how well he’s aged, if he wasn’t already such a strange mixture of utterly confused and vaguely flustered.)

The playback starts.

“Hey,” the Lance, on the screen, _future Lance_ , begins. “So, Pidge says we can’t transfer a whole lot of data this way--some technical nerd junk--”

“ _Hey_!” a voice offscreen interjects. Future-Lance ignores it and continues,

“-- But hopefully this goes to the right place. Uh, Allura.” he pauses awkwardly. “If you’re getting this, that’s good! I’m sure you’re looking very youthful.” Lance winks. “Not that you don’t look youthful now. It’s a joke. Anyway, so I think--I _hope_ , you have my daughter somewhere in the Castle of Lions. About _yea_ -high, dark hair, broody pouty face. She learned that from her other dad, big surprise there.”

He’s using a lot of hand-gestures to exemplify his points, and he seems cheerful enough, but his voice still sounds slightly strained. It’s such a bizarre experience, watching his future-self talk, that Lance can’t quite wrap his head around it.

“You’ll know her if you see her. Probably the only kid around for miles--”

He’s interrupted again, but this time Keith’s face comes into the frame. And man, future Keith would be a sight for sore eyes if he didn’t look so damn exhausted. Dark bags aside, Lance thinks his hair might even be a little bit longer than it is now--but it’s tied back, so hard to tell.

“Lance, you’re rambling.” Future Keith says, scooting Lance over so he can be more in-frame. Despite the way he looks like he hasn’t slept in days, there’s no snap behind the words. Just exhaustion. “Allura. Pidge and Hunk got together a list and some instructions, so _your_ Pidge and Hunk can recreate the device that Corrinne used to get there. If you follow them, you should be able to use it to get her back to this date.” there’s a pause for a moment. “ _Please_.”

He sounds so desperate, there’s almost a crack in his voice. Lance has the urge to look away, but can’t seem to tear his eyes from the screen.

“Pidge says we’re running out of time, but Cora,” Future Lance speaks up again, “If you see this, we love you! And we miss you, and--”

“Be good.” Keith cuts in. “We’ll see you again soon.”

And for the first time since he’s been on the screen, future Keith smiles. “Love you, Cora.”

The transmission ends.

No one says anything for what Lance feels is an entire eternity. Corrinne sniffles, and shuffles behind Allura’s dress to hide it. Lance sneaks a look at Keith, because he’s been weirdly quiet this entire time--and oh.

He was red. Really red, like the color of his jacket or his lion, and chewing on his lip like he always does. He’s so red it almost makes _Lance_ start to flush.

Shiro is the first to break the silence.

“Did the instructions come through?” he asks, and Lance is glad that Shiro is the voice of all reason because he really, really doesn’t have any words himself right now. Allura nods.

“Thankfully, yes. Though looking at it--it looks very complex. This might take a while, not to even mention that some of these components needed to make it may take us several Earth-weeks to obtain.”

“I bet we can do it,” Pidge says, tapping Hunk on the back. “I mean, then both Keith _and_ Lance will owe me big-time. Even if it’s just future me, and that’s totally worth it.”

She sends them both a teasing grin, but neither of them are in the mood. Hunk nods, dragging the attention back to he and Pidge.

“I just don’t ever want to see Keith like that again,” Hunk replies. “Never thought I’d be building a time-machine to take Keith and Lance’s daughter into the future, though....”

“Well, I’d have bet you’d never thought you’d be on a flying ship with giant robotic lions, either!” Coran interjects. Hunk nods again, thoughtfully this time.

“I mean. You aren’t wrong there.”

Allura clears her throat.

“Anyway. If you two will take a look at the instructions, I can set our destination for the nearest planet that has some of the items on the list.” she nods toward Hunk and Pidge, before turning her attention back to Corrinne. “We’ll get you home soon, okay?”

Corrinne nods, and Lance thinks he sees her wipe at her eyes like she’s hiding tears. His heart hurts a little, for her--missing home is something he can relate to--but before he can think any further on it a hand pats his shoulder.

“Well, congrats, you two!” Coran says, cheerfully, and Lance feels his face go red as he realizes Coran’s other hand is on Keith’s shoulder. They’re still standing next to each other. “Isn’t it neat to know what the future has in store?”

_Not really_ , is all Lance can think as he can’t even bring himself to look at Keith. _I think_ some _things should be left as a surprise_.

 

/

 

Corrinne sleeps with Allura in her room that night. She really only _talks_ to Allura, besides to answer direct questions--and even then, the little girl usually just nods or shakes her head. She isn’t very talkative. Lance doesn’t know whether it’s from her being shy, or just from so much happening in one day.

Despite the fact that this is possibly the weirdest situation he’s ever been in, and probably no one else will ever experience, Lance finds himself sort of… Fascinated by her. He’d probably try and talk to her, if she didn’t constantly act like she was totally freaked out just by the _presence_ of either Keith or Lance.

Allura tries to get her to come out of her bedroom for dinner, but apparently, she just shakes her head.

“I think she’s a bit shaken up,” Allura explains, over dinner, as she sets aside a bowl of goo for Corrinne. “She went through a lot today, but I’m sure she’ll open up more tomorrow.”

Besides that, their dinner is eaten mostly in quiet. Without Lance to be noisy, the tension is thick and everyone else seems deep in thought.

(If you had told Lance a week ago that having a kid on board the ship would have made things _quieter_ , he would have never believed you.)

A couple of times, Lance thinks he sees Keith look over at him--but everytime he looks up, Keith’s gaze is elsewhere.

Finally, Keith finishes and excuses himself early, and Lance heads to bed.

Neither of them talk about it.

 

/

 

Pidge always stays up late--and, not that she would tell anyone this (especially not Shiro) but sometimes doesn’t even sleep at all. It’s not a big deal.

Some people need more sleep, some people need less, and some people are just completely screwed up. Pidge falls in that last category. Hey, _it happens_.

The screen of her computer lights up her face in the dark as she looks over the instructions for the device to send the kid back home. Some of it makes sense, some of it seems totally foreign, but she’d figure it out. She always did.

Not to mention, she at least has Hunk to bounce ideas off of.

Pidge doesn’t look up from her screen until she hears a faint _tap-tap_ , the unmistakable sound of someone who isn’t wearing shoes approaching. She looks up, half expecting to see Lance--he walks around sometimes at night, it wouldn’t be _that_ unusual--but instead almost has a heart attack at the child that’s peering at her from the darkness.

“Holy _shit_ ,” she starts, grasping at her chest. It’s like a scene from the fucking _Shining_. Belatedly, she realizes maybe she shouldn’t cuss around the little girl. Oh well, too late now.

Corrinne doesn’t get any closer, or walk away. She just shifts her weight from one leg to the other, bouncing around like she’s nervous. Horror-movie vibe officially ruined.

“Uh,” Pidge starts, because she should probably say something, at least. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Allura’s room? Asleep?”

She stops fidgeting so much when she hears Pidge’s voice, and gives a little nod.

Pidge stares at her for a few more seconds, before shrugging and turning back to her computer. What was she _supposed_ to do, yell at her to go away? She didn’t know this kid from adam.

… But. This kid probably knows her, Pidge realizes. And yeah, maybe she’s not really the best person with children, but… She isn’t _heartless_.

Corrinne is still standing there, hands clasped in front of the little pink nightgown that Pidge can only guess Allura gave her. Where the hell the princess got it, she doesn’t know, but that’s a detail that can wait for later.

“... You can come sit down, if you want.”

Pidge doesn’t know if she was waiting for the invitation, but Corrinne scurries over and sits, cross legged on the floor, just far enough away from Pidge that they aren’t touching, but close enough that she can see the work she’s doing. Pidge raises an eyebrow. This can’t be interesting to watch, especially not for a six year old.

… Well, it’s not like there’s much else to do at this time of night. Pidge shrugs it off and continues working.

“... Your hair is short,” Corrinne mutters quietly. Pidge turns toward her in surprise, because that’s maybe the longest sentence she’s uttered since she came aboard.

Also… It’s an interesting one.

“How long is it usually?” she asks, because she isn’t sure if the kid has a basic grasp on time-travel or not, but she’ll assume _not_ and avoid saying things like “ _your_ _Pidge_ ”. The little girl’s gone through enough confusion for one day.

Corrinne gestures toward her own shoulders, tapping them gently, and Pidge hums. It’s about where Corrinne’s hair falls, too.

Not as long as it was before, but longer than now. That _is_ pretty interesting.

“Cool,” Pidge says, because she doesn’t really know what else to say. Corrinne nods, and then they sit in silence again.

Pidge is the one to break the silence, a few minutes later, because she’s already lost her focus and-- if Corrinne was deciding to be talkative, she might as well milk it and find out what she can.

“Do you know where you are?” she asks her, because she genuinely doesn’t know if the kid has any kind of awareness about the situation at all. Corrinne nods.

“Castle-ship.”

Not quite the answer Pidge was looking for, but… Not wrong, either, and it’s good to know she at least knows what she’s _on_. Still, though. “That’s not what I meant. I mean…” how to word this. “Time wise.”

Corrinne’s nose scrunches up in confusion for a moment, before a look of realization crosses her face. Pidge watches this with mild amusement-- maybe she doesn’t really have any of Keith’s _features_ , (or Lance’s either, for that matter,) but there’s no way he could deny this kid when the faces she pulls look _just like him_.

“Um, in the past?”

“Hey, good job,” Pidge responds, and that gets a little smile out of Corrinne. Okay, so maybe kids weren’t so bad after all. Or maybe it’s just this one in particular. “How’d you know that?”

The smile falters from her lips, and Pidge immediately feels bad. “Um… Uh, Uncle Hunk built a machine, and I wanted to go back, to, um, when I was on Earth. To get a present for Papa, but um, uh, I messed up and um. I can’t go back, and I think I’m gonna be in big trouble.”

Her voice trembles a little bit at that last part, lip pouting a little bit. Pidge stares, wide-eyed, because if she starts crying like she did earlier, Pidge might actually die.

“Uh, hey! Hey, don’t look so sad! I bet you won’t be in trouble at all. I bet that your Dads just… Really miss you.”

Corrinne looks up at her with a sniffle, blinking back tears. “Really?”

“I’m sure,” Pidge says, even though she has no way of knowing. But she _does_ know current Lance and Keith, and there’s no way they could yell at a kid this cute until they cried.

No way.

Suddenly, she’s being hugged. Little arms wrap around her beneath her shoulders, and she’s so surprised Pidge doesn’t even think to hug back. The embrace is gone just as suddenly as it’s there, and Corrinne is back on her feet.

“Um, I gotta go back to bed now,” she says, rubbing at an eye, and it’s hard to tell in the dark but Pidge thinks her face might be a little red.

_Oh_ yeah, definitely Keith’s child. Pidge gives a little wave as Corrinne darts back down the hall toward Allura’s room.

 

/

 

Lance knows he’s gotta bring it up to Keith. He’s _gotta_ , because there’s a little girl walking around the castle all guarded and quiet, like someone somehow grabbed Keith’s attitude and ported it directly into a smaller body.

But, still. It’s… A unique situation. And sometimes, _sometimes_ , it’s easier to just avoid the issue. Yeah, Lance knows that’s not the right thing to do, but it sure is easy when the issue is avoiding him right back.

( _Both_ the issues, actually. Keith isn’t the _only one_ who’s watching him carefully, but looking away when he notices and tries to make eye contact.)

After another silent and awkward meal over breakfast, though, Lance knows he can’t take it anymore. Actually, it might even be a problem if they try and form Voltron--and Shiro hasn’t said anything to him yet, but he knows it’s just a matter of time. The only thing that makes the breakfast bearable at all is the fact that Allura and Coran are chatting normally, and he thinks he maybe sees Corrinne smile at Pidge.

(He has _no_ idea what he missed there.)

So Lance resolves himself to go talk to Keith. For, you know, the team.

And also, maybe it kind of really sucks to have Keith avoid him like this.

Lance finds him in his room, because Keith is never that hard to find. If he isn’t in the training deck, or polishing up his lion, he’s in his room. He’s like a programmed NPC from a 90s video game.

“Hey,” Lance says when Keith opens up his door at the knocking, and his face goes from neutral to neutral-but-slightly-distressed, because Keith isn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he thinks he is. “We should talk. About the… Thing.”

Keith raises an eyebrow as he steps aside, an unspoken invitation for Lance to come in.

“The thing.” he replies, leaning up against the wall next to the door. Lance stands across from him.

“Yeah. The _thing_.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Did you just call it a “ _thing_ ”?”

“You just called it an “ _it_ ”!”

“So did you! Just now!”

Lance pauses to suck in a dramatic breath. He’d watched _exactly_ the right amount of daytime soap-operas to know how to handle this situation appropriately.

“You need to take responsibility.” his voice is confident, unwavering, sexy. All adjectives _he_ just came up with, of course.

Instead of being impressed, Keith looks like he can’t believe the words that just came out of Lance’s mouth.

“What-- I-- Why do _I_ have to take responsibility?” is what he finally decides on, after stumbling over his words a few times. Lance scoffs.

“Uh, ‘cause she walks around like you and is all quiet like you and moody and broody, just like you get sometimes? _Duh_.”

“I don’t get moody and broody!” Keith argues back. Lance rolls his eyes.

“Oh, please. You can’t deny she totally acts like you.”

Keith’s face is rapidly getting more red, and Lance doesn’t know if it’s out of frustration or embarrassment. “You were the one on the video for most of the time! _You_ take responsibility!”

“Keith, a man can’t make a child on his own.”

Keith splutters. “She obviously-- We didn’t-- Lance, neither of us _gave birth_ to her.”

“Weird things happen in space.” he replies, levelling a very serious gaze at Keith. Keith runs his hands through his hair and groans.

“ _Lance_.”

“You should never rule out any possibilities--”

“Get out of my room--”

“Anything is possible.”

“She doesn’t look like either of us!” Keith throws his hands up, in a very Lance-like dramatic gesture. Lance feels a bit of pride in that. Good to know he’s rubbing off on everyone. “Lance, leave.”

“Fine!” Lance says, turning on his heel and moving toward the door. For extra flair, just before he exits he whips around and says, “But I’m coming after you for child-support!”

The door shuts on him.

Well, it could have gone… Worse.

At least the tension between them was broken.

 

/

 

Corrinne gets comfortable enough that they stop clinging to Allura all the time, and start following Pidge around sometimes.

Pidge isn’t exactly sure how she feels about that, but at least the kid isn’t annoying. Mostly, she’s just kind of… There.

She and Hunk are making a list of the things they can pick up from the next planet when the unmistakeable sound of small footsteps approaching makes them both pause. Corrinne stops just behind the couch they’re sitting on, her eyes just barely visible over the back of the couch as she stands on her tiptoes.

Hunk’s eyes dart to her, and then to Pidge, trying to communicate a question with his eyes. Pidge only shrugs in response.

“... Hi,” Hunk finally says, turning his full attention to the little girl peeking over the couch. She gives a small, shy wave. “Did you need something?”

She shakes her head.

Pidge’s eyes meet hers, and-- Oh man, she was cute. Relenting, Pidge pats the seat next to her, and Corrinne’s eyes light up, just a little bit.

What Pidge expects to happen, is that she’ll walk around the couch and plant herself down, quietly. What she _doesn’t_ expect, is how Corrinne decides that that just must be _too much work_ , hoists herself up onto the back of the couch, loses her balance and promptly face-plants right into the couch cushions.

Pidge and Hunk both stare, wide-eyed, as the little girl sinks further into the cushions before lifting herself up, dazed look on her face. Pidge is afraid she might burst out into tears, or something--but before she can even get out a “ _are you okay_ ,”, the surprised look on Corrinne’s face turns to a smile--

Which turns into a very light giggle.

Hunk and Pidge watch in stunned amazement as Corrinne’s nose crinkles up, eyes squinting as she laughs at her own clumsiness. Good _Lord_ , she even lets out a little _snort_.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Hunk whispers, as if she’s not sitting right there and totally capable of hearing him anyway. “That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

She stops giggling to give him a little grin, fluttering her eyelashes. Pidge gapes, not even trying to hide her amusement.

“Oh no, this girl is _dangerous_ ,” she says, nudging Hunk and grinning. “Look at that. She _knows_ she’s cute.”

Corrinne only gives them both an innocent grin.

Caught up in the little girls antics, neither of them noticed the other footsteps growing closer--or even, somehow, the voices associated with them until Keith and Lance were standing in the entryway of the common room, bickering. Corrinne presses herself down into the cushions again, obviously trying to disappear from Lance and Keith’s line of sight.

“Pidge!” Keith’s voice shouts, from across the room. She almost jumps at his tone.

“ _What_?”

“Tell Lance that I don’t owe him _child support_ for our child, that isn’t even born yet in this time!”

Pidge scrunches up her nose. “Don’t bring _me_ into your weird fights.”

Lance rolls his eyes so hard Pidge can almost hear it. “Hunk, tell Keith that--”

“Uh-uh.” Hunk shakes his head. “Nope, I don’t want in on your lover-quarrels either.”

“You’ve officially been dropped five points on my bro list.”

“I’m picking up ingredients for dessert when we stop at the next planet.”

“You’ve officially just raised five points on my bro list.”

Keith scoffs, taking the opportunity to walk away while Lance is distracted with Hunk. Lance follows after him when he notices, (“ _Hey, I wasn’t done talking yet!_ ”) and the nuisance is gone just as quickly as it arrived.

Pidge looks down at Corrinne.

“It’s safe to come out now.”

She sits back up, frown on her face now and pouty brown eyes look way sadder than they probably had a right to. Pidge tips her head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um,” Corrinne starts, “Papa and Daddy, um… Seemed really mad at each other.”

Hunk blinks. “Aw, I think Keith was just annoyed, not mad.”

This does not make Corrinne any happier. Pidge frowns.

“Wait, which one is _‘Papa’_ and which one is _‘Daddy_ ’?”

Corrinne picks at her nails. “Papa is Papa and Daddy is Daddy,” she replies, simply. Pidge wonders if it’s okay to give children sarcastic, flat stares.

“You don’t know their first names?”

“Oh.” she says, then nods. “Papa’s name is Lance. Daddy’s name is Keith.”

“Well,” Hunk says, in another attempt to brighten the mood, “I’m sure they won’t be arguing for long. Their arguments never last!” he pauses for a moment, before tacking on, “... Would anyone like ice cream-flavored food goo?”

Corrinne makes a little gasp. Hunk grins.

“I’ll just be in the kitchen…” he starts, and before he can even finish the sentence she’s hopped off the couch and racing toward the kitchen.

“Good job, Uncle Hunk,” Pidge teases after she exits the room. Hunk laughs.

“Hey, man, whatever. I was just craving some ice cream.”

 

/

 

Lance is pretty surprised to see Corrinne sitting at the dining room table in the dead middle of the night, head down in her arms on the smooth surface. It isn’t unusual for _him_ to be walking around at this time of night, but usually the only other person who’s up is Pidge.

(He always appreciates that she doesn’t ask questions about it.)

He thinks the little girl is asleep--maybe she snuck out of Allura’s room to get something to drink and just crashed right here on her way back?--but when he attempts to sneak past her, quietly, he hears a very quiet sniffle.

He freezes, straining his ears. Sure enough, there’s another faint sniff. It’s hard to tell, considering how dark it is, but he thinks he sees her shift a little bit.

She isn’t asleep. She’s _crying_.

The realization hits Lance hard. There’s a little girl, not three feet away from him, up way past her bedtime and crying silently at a table. That’s like a heart-break bingo right there, not even to mention the fact that she’s… Apparently, his daughter from the future.

(It’s still a little hard to wrap his mind around that one.)  
“... Hey.” he says, voice barely above a whisper so he doesn’t startle her. Corrinne still jerks her head up anyway, wiping at her eyes to clear the tears as she focuses on him. He approaches her, slowly, and is almost shocked when she doesn’t run away from him.

“Can I sit here?” he asks, gesturing toward the chair next to her. She blinks at him a few times, before giving him a shrug.

“That’s not really an answer,” Lance points out. She sniffles again, then nods.

So he pulls the chair out, and sits.

Neither of them say anything. That’s not surprising on her end so much as it is his, but contrary to popular belief Lance is entirely capable of reading the mood and choosing not to say anything. He just… Doesn’t, most of the time.

Corrinne rubs at her eyes, and he doesn’t know if it’s out of tiredness or her trying to hide more tears. He takes the opportunity to speak up.

“Sometimes I walk around here at night, when I start thinking about home. It’s quiet and I always remember things better when I’m moving around.” he pauses. “I miss Earth a lot.”

She listens to him silently, not saying anything for a few ticks.

“... I’ve been to Earth.”

He looks at her, grin splitting across his face. “Oh yeah? Wanna tell me about it?”

She smiles back, hesitantly, and nods. “Umm, I’ve been there a lot. We go back to visit, and um… We visit the beach.”

Lance’s happiness at her words is genuine--not just him showing interest for the sake of calming a child down, but real joy runs through him when he thinks about the implication that he _does_ get to go back to Earth. Multiple times, to see his family again.

( _With_ his family.)

“Are you a good swimmer?” he asks, and she nods excitedly, any sadness she had earlier seemingly gone.

“You always say I’m like a fish! Umm, but you’re a good swimmer too, so that makes you a fish too. A bigger fish! We go surfing while Daddy watches, and then we get to bury him in the sand and make a sand castle on top of him.” she pauses for a moment, and Lance is kind of surprised that she’s opening up so easy. Just ten minutes ago, he’d never heard her say more than five words at a time.

“Sounds like a lot of fun,” he says, and tries not to sound too wistful-- at least he knows he has something to look forward to. She looks at him, tipping her head.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get to see someday too.” she reaches over, and pats the side of his arm. It’s oddly comforting, even if he has to bite back a laugh when she does it.

“Pff.. Thank you Corrinne.”

“Cora. You always call me Cora.”

Lance blinks. “Okay then, Cora. Thanks.”

She gives him a little thumbs-up and a lopsided grin, before pausing for a moment. She looks like she’s contemplating--before she extends her arm out toward him, right hand balled into a fist.

It takes a minute to process, before he realizes that she’s trying to give him a fistbump. _Holy crap, this is the coolest kid ever_.

Her face lights up again when he bumps his fist against her outstretched one, and he _cannot believe_ his future self taught his kid to fistbump. Well, he _can_ , but it’s still awesome.

She yawns and rubs at her eyes again, and Lance is feeling it too this time. He reaches over to ruffle her hair.

“Ready to go back to bed, kiddo? I can walk you to Allura’s room.” he props his head up on the palm of his hand, frowning when her previous smile faltered a bit. “What’s up?”

“Um,” she says.

And then she mumbles something so quietly he can’t even hear it in the silence of the abandoned dining room.

“Huh?” he asks, and she rubs at her cheeks. He thinks maybe they’re turning red.

“Um,” she says, a little louder this time. “Um. When I, um. Can’t sleep, you sometimes would… Um… Let me sleep with you and Daddy…”

Lance’s mouth opens--then closes--then opens again. He could do that. He used to sleep with his younger siblings all the time-- to be honest, he kind of missed the companionship.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. Hopping off of the chair, he holds out his hand toward her. “Would the _lovely_ Cora grace my hand by allowing me to help her up and lead her to the proper room, then?”

Giggling, she takes his hand and follows him down the hall.

 

/

 

Lance is woken up by a very loud banging at his door, and as soon as he opens his eyes he knows it is _way_ too early to be up. A glance at the clock next to his bed confirms this; it isn’t even _close_ to time for breakfast yet.

He has half a mind to ignore the banging, but then he hears Keith on the other side yell “ _Lance, wake up_!”. Being mindful of the six year old in his bed, he carefully gets up and answers the door, blinking blearily.

“Lance--!”

“Shh.” Lance interrupts him, putting his finger to his lips because _seriously_. Who’s even that loud at this hour. Keith scowls.

“Don’t shh me, Allura’s waking everyone up-- Corrinne is missing--!”

“Shh!” he says, a little louder this time, stepping aside and gesturing toward his bed. Keith’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, but he steps inside and follows Lance’s gaze to--

Corrinne, safe and sound and very much asleep. In Lance’s bed.

“Oh,” he says, voice lowered. “Why is she in _here_?”

“Because last night we bonded, and she couldn’t sleep so she asked if she could sleep with me.” Lance answers, looking smug. “What, _jealous_?”

“No!” Keith bristles, crossing his arms in front of him. “You should have said something to Allura, she’s got everyone freaking out--”

“Including you, I see.” Lance grins. “Well, I’ll have you know she is safe and sound, and she came to _me_ for her problems.”

Okay, not really. More like Lance just happened to find her. But still, he got her to open up to him and that has to count for _something_.

Keith scowls. “So?”

“So, _I’m_ the better par--”

He’s cutting off by a groaning noise, coming from his bed. Keith and Lance turn their attention onto Corrinne, who’s sitting up, hair wild and pillow held in front of her.

“Neither of you is better!” she whines, sounding exasperated--and Lance wonders if that’s an argument that comes up a lot. “We all said no more arguing over that! Not even as a joke!”

They blink at her as she rubs sleep from her eyes, watching as the realization of where she is slowly dawns over her. Turning red, she hops off the bed and shuffles past them.

“Cora--” Lance starts, but she shakes her head.

“Gonna go find ‘Lura. Bye.”

And she’s gone. Keith and Lance stare at the door after it shuts.

Lance is the first to break the silence. “... Do you really think we argue about that?”

Keith gives him a flat stare.

 

/

 

Corrinne is surprisingly more animated than she first seems.

A lot in the same way Keith is, actually, Lance realizes as he watches them over breakfast. His eyes flick back and forth, watching the way their facial expressions seem to mirror each others.

At some point, he just settles on watching Keith react as he talks to Shiro, until Pidge kicks his leg under the table.

“Ow!”

“If you’re going to stare at him like that, at least take a picture. It’d last longer.” she snorts.

 

/

 

Logically, Lance knows that he’s annoying the everloving shit out of Keith. He knows that he’s being over-the-top and ridiculous, because that’s what he’s good at. Not over-the-top and ridiculous like Mr. _I’m-Gonna-Run-Directly-Into-This-Fight-Because-I-Think-I-Can-Take-On-The-Entire-World_ , but in a different way.

(At least Lance is _aware_ of it.)

There’s a special phenomenon that happens when you grow up with five other siblings: you learn to get attention, by any means possible, and old habits? They die hard!

(He may be a natural flirt, but Keith wouldn’t take his flirting seriously anyway-- which is a problem he has _enough_ of, thank you very much.)

But Lance knows this can’t keep going on. Even if annoyed attention is better than no attention, that’s not…

That’s not the way he wants this to work out.

“Keith,” he says, finding the other Paladin in the kitchen area with a cup in his hand. Keith arches an eyebrow at Lance, wiping whatever weird alien liquid he was just drinking off his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yeah?”

Lance can’t pinpoint the exact moment that he realized he had… a…. _Crush_ , on Keith. And he’s spent a _lot_ of time thinking about it, trying to figure it out. He was just short of making some kind of Keith-level conspiracy theory think board just to plot this out. The closest he can ever seem to get is that their original “rivalry” was fueled by jealousy on his end, which turned into admiration, which turned into…

Whatever was making him want to launch himself at Keith and kiss him hard and aggressive. And also soft and slow. And every variation of that in-between, too!

With _tongue_.

Oh, yeah. This is bad.

“Keith,” he repeats, again, for good measure. “We have to talk. And no, not about child support.”

Well, _kind of_ about child support. Lance probably wouldn’t be tackling this head-on right now if it weren’t for the confirmation that they, apparently, in the future, like each other so much that they adopt a kid together. And go back to Earth together, where they play on the beach. Together! And sleep in the same bed together and yeah, if that’s not confirmation that Keith likes him back then _someone_ in the future is living a lie.

(That’s sort of a depressing thought, so he moves on.)

Keith squints at him, sort of looking like he’s bracing himself for something stupid to come out of his mouth. Ha, well, jokes on him because Lance was about to drop a bomb _even better_.

“I like you.”

And there it was, out in the open. The ball has been served and is now in Keith’s court. Out of Lance’s hands. The match is tied--Wait, no, this isn’t about points. Maybe he shouldn’t have thought about the tennis analogy.

Keith looks around the kitchen like he expects Pidge to pop out of the cabinet or something with a camera. When he realizes it’s not a prank, he focuses back on Lance and frowns.

“Oh,” he says. “For how long?”

That’s not really the reaction Lance was anticipating, which means that all of his practicing in front of his mirror was for _nothing_. There wasn’t even any immediate _swooning_. Lance’s mouth opens and closes like a fish.

“I--” Lance starts, “Don’t know? Awhile?” Possibly even longer than he initially thought. He has a distinct memory of checking out Keith’s ass multiple times when they first started training together. His subconscious knew before he did, apparently. “Wait, you’re at least supposed to be surprised!”

Keith blinks. “There’s a little girl from the future walking around this ship that calls us Daddy and Papa and I’m supposed to be surprised you _like_ me?”

Okay, well, point taken. If Lance wanted a better reaction, he should have done this a week ago.

“I mean, I _guess_.” Lance crosses his arms in front of his jacket and shrugs his shoulders. “Wait, so do you like me back?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, keeping his voice level and matter-of-fact despite the the increasing redness in his face.

“For how long?” Lance parrots Keith’s own question back to him. Keith looks down at his palm and counts on his hands.

“Uh… Seven months,” he says, with confidence. Lance’s jaw drops.

“Seven--You liked me for seven months _and never told me_?”

“I didn’t know if you liked me back!” Keith says, throwing his arms up. “ _You_ didn’t even know if you liked me back! I wasn’t going to say something!”

An awkward silence rolls over the kitchen after that, as Lance processes all this new information.

“Oh.” he finally says, in response. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah, true.”

“Yeah,” Keith says back.

It’s still awkward.

“I’ve gotta go train with Shiro.” Keith finally says, and Lance is _pretty_ sure he’s lying because Shiro was lounging on the couch earlier when Lance walked by. Keith moves toward the exit as Lance frowns.

“Wait, we were having a… A feelings conversation!”

“Bye,” Keith says, and then he leaves.

Lance stands there, alone in the kitchen, and wonders what the hell even just transpired.

 

/

 

Keith was prepared for aliens. Keith believed bigfoot was real. In a world where nothing was impossible, where Keith flew around in a _giant metal blue lion_ , nothing ever really took him by surprise.

However,

Nothing could have ever possibly prepared him for the sight of Shiro sitting across from his daughter, who arrived from the future and _very much should not exist yet_ , clapping their hands together to a rhythm that they were both singing out loud.

 

“ _Down by the banks of the Hanky-Panky,_

_Where the bullfrogs jump from bank-to-banky--_ ”

 

“--Aw, crud.” Shiro laughs as he messes up the pattern and throws the two of them off. Corrinne giggles.

“It’s okay. Let’s try again!”

Shiro lifts his hands up to retry, but notices Keith standing there out of the corner of his eye and turns to look at him. Corrinne follows his gaze.

“Keith,” he says, by way of greeting. His eyes flicker from him to Corrinne, and Keith can practically see the gears turning in his head. “Hey, Corrinne, why don’t we let Keith try?”

It had been a few days since Corrinne’s untimely arrival, and she was slowly--but surely-- reaching out to the other Paladins, spending time with all of them. She wasn’t exactly a trouble-maker, so Allura didn’t feel the need to assign someone to her at all times, but she did have a habit of sneaking around. As long as _someone_ knew where she was, it was fine.

The only person she hadn’t spent any time with was Keith.

“I don’t really know how to do play.” Keith said, automatically, because it was true. Shiro arches an eyebrow.

“Corrinne is a good teacher. I bet you’ll get the hang of it.” he says, standing up and motioning toward the spot across from her. Keith sighs. There was no way he was going to get out of this one.

He sits down, cross legged across from Corrinne, and stares at her.

She stares back.

Shiro watches.

“... Hey, Corrinne,” the older Paladin starts, breaking the silence. “Show Keith the first moves like you did me.”

“Oh,” she averts his gaze down, and then back up at Keith. “Okay. Um, hold your hand out like this…”

She goes through the movements, instructing him through each step before adding the lyrics onto it.

Keith is a surprisingly fast learner, for someone who didn’t want to do this in the first place.

 

“ _Down by the banks of the hanky-panky,_

_Where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky_ ,”

 

they chant, together. She adds on another verse as he starts to get the hang of it, and the rhythm speeds up.

 

“ _With a heeps, hops, soda pops,_  
_Hey Mr. Lilly and he went kerplops,_  
_With a cherry on top_.”

 

Keith is so focused on not messing up that he doesn’t notice the small crowd gather around as Allura and Coran take notice, and Hunk and Pidge follow.

 

“ _Here comes Noah walking in the dark,  
steps on a hammer and builds the ark,_ ”

 

Lance is the last to stop in, noticing everyone in the room as he passes by. He steps in and opens his mouth to ask, but Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder and points to Keith and Corrinne. Lance gapes as they speed up even _more_.

 

“ _Here comes animals two by two,_  
_Hippopotamus kangaroo,_  
_Kaboom on you._ ”

 

They’re only getting faster the farther they go on, and Keith can’t help the smile on his face when he glances up for a second and sees Corrinne so focused that her tongue is sticking out. He nearly messes them up by watching her.

 

“ _Deep in the jungle where nobody knows,  
There’s a big fat gorilla picking his nose,”_

 

Everyone is totally mesmerized by the clapping. At the speed they’re going at, it’s almost _impossible_ to look away.

 

“ _And he picks, picks, flicks, and it lands you--  
Kaboom!_ ”

 

At the last word, Corrinne lungs forward and presses her index finger to Keith’s forehead. He stares at her, confusion all over her face as she giggles.

“I wiped the gorilla’s booger on you!” she clarifies, “So I won and you lost!”

Lance busts out laughing.

“Wait, you didn’t tell me about that!” Keith says, eyebrows furrowing as Lance reaches over and gives her a fist bump. She shrugs.

“Umm, well, you’re just s’posed to _know_.”

“I want a rematch.” Keith says, crossing his arms. She giggles, but before she can agree Allura cuts in.

“Wait! I’d like to learn this game too.” she says, smiling sweetly. “Perhaps we should all take turns?”

Corrinne taps her chin as Keith pouts silently to himself. “Um, actually we could all play it together! If we all sit in a circle.”

Allura’s eyes practically sparkle. “Oh, excellent! Everyone, get in a circle. This will be great for a bonding exercise.”

Everyone moves to create a circle on the floor, with Corrinne squeezing herself firmly in between Keith and Lance. She holds out her palms face-up on either side, and everyone else follows. She rests her hands on Keith and Lance’s palms.

“Um, I can start! All you had to do is hit the next person’s palm as it speeds up. The first person who messes up the timing is out. Ready?”

Everyone nods. She claps Lance’s palm and starts,

 

“ _Down by the shores of the hanky-panky,_

_Where the bullfrogs jump from bank-to-banky…_ ”

 

/

 

It’s a few days later when Lance is woken up by a knocking on his door, followed by the sound of choked crying.

He fumbles to the door in a confused panic, because what the _hell_ , when it slides open and he sees Corrinne. Tears down her face, she rubs at her eyes and gives another pathetic sniffle.

“Cora? What’s wrong?” he crouches down, moving a hand to wipe a stray tear from her face. “Cora--”

She practically throws herself at him, wrapping her small arms around his neck and burying her face in his shirt. She starts crying again, probably getting snot all over his pajama shirt, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“Hey, shh, it’ll be okay.” he says, rubbing her back. “It’ll be okay. Did you have a bad dream?”

She sniffles, shaking in Lance’s arms. He thinks he feels his heart break, a little.

“...nt Daddy,” she mumbles, words muffled by Lance’s shirt. He frowns.

“What?”

“Want Daddy,” Cora repeats. She pulls her head out of his shirt, but her fingers cling tighter. He nods, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up.

“Daddy-- Oh, yeah, okay. We can go see Keith.”

She’s light. It’s been so long since he last had to carry a child anywhere that he had forgotten what it was like, to hold someone so much smaller than you. She buries her face into his shoulder as he walks down the hall and knocks on Keith’s door, holding her up with one arm.

He doesn’t take long to answer. Lance isn’t surprised; he knows Keith is a light sleeper. Still, he looks slightly groggy as he takes in the scene before him, Corrinne’s sniffling face hidden from his sight.

“What…” he rubs at his eye. “Lance? What’s going on…”

“She asked for you,” he says, not feeling the need to state that she was crying so hard she was gasping for breath just a few minutes ago. He adjusts her slightly, moving her up, and she clings onto him harder in response.

“Cora,” Lance says, softly. “Keith is here. Do you want me to put you down?”

She shakes her head violently. Keith sighs and runs a hand through his bedhead.

“Just come in,” he says, stepping aside. He closes the door behind Lance and sits down on his bed. Lance follows, hoping that maybe feeling the bed will cause Corrinne to unattach herself from his shirt.

“What happened?” Keith asks, voice low, and Lance shrugs the best he can with a child koala-clinging to him.

“I don’t know. Maybe a bad dream. My siblings always came to me with those,” he says. Carefully, he attempts to get her to let go of him again. She finally loosens her grip, turning to bury her face into Keith’s shirt this time. He looks down at her, in shock, and then looks up at Lance with pleading eyes. If this had been any other situation, it would have been kind of funny.

“D-Don’t go.”

Keith blinks down at her as she sniffles, looking up to meet his gaze. He frowns, confused.

“Go… Where?”

“ _Away_.” she says, and then the tears start rolling down again. Keith panics.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, carding a hand through her dark hair while sending Lance desperate looks. Lance only shrugs in confusion. “I’m… Right here, Cora.”

Her shoulders shake. “Papa too?”

“Right here.” Lance replies. She twists around in Keith’s lap, like she’s making sure that he wasn’t lying somehow. She lets out a sniffle, and then a nod when their eyes meet.

“S-Stay here.”

He can’t tell if it’s a request, or a demand, or something in-between--but he wasn’t about to find out either. “Okay.” he replies. “I’m right here."

She leans away from Keith to grab onto Lance for the second time, resting her head against his chest instead of burying her face. Besides a few hiccups, her breath evens out and he mimics what Keith had done earlier, combing his hands gently through her hair.

“... I think she fell asleep,” Lance says, after a few minutes of silence. He feels Keith let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay. Think you can carry her back?”

Lance goes to stand up, but the movement makes her whine in her sleep as her fingers cling to him tighter. He shakes his head.

“Not a good idea. I don’t wanna wake her up again. What if she starts crying?”

Keith sighs. “You can leave her in here, then? I don’t mind sleeping with her for tonight.”

“She’s got a grip on me tighter than those black skinny jeans you wear.” Lance replies, shaking his head again. Keith scowls at the analogy.

“ _Hey_.” he snaps, and then pinches the bridge of his nose. “So… What do we do.”

Lance chews his bottom lip. Corrinne breathes evenly in his arms, completely unaware of the total stress she was causing the two of them. “Uh. I mean, I could just lay down. She said not to leave, right? So if she wakes up and one of us isn’t there, she might freak out.”

Keith considers this. “Oh,”

Lance is really glad it’s dark in Keith’s room, because he’s sure his face is turning a very interesting color of red. “Yeah. I mean, just for one night, for Cora. We should be able to fit if we sleep on our sides.”

“Yeah.” Keith says, and then clears his throat. “I mean, yeah. That’s fine.”

He wonders if Keith’s face is just as red as his _feels_. Scooting very, very carefully, he places his back against the wall and lays Corrinne down next to him, curled up into his shirt. She makes a contented noise, and Keith lays down beside her.

In the dark, like this, Lance can just barely make out Keith’s eyes watching him. He gives him a grin, hoping it’s not as nervous as it seems.

 

“‘Night, Keith.”

“Yeah, ‘night.”

 

/

 

Pidge comes out of her room just in time to see Lance, Keith, and Corrinne exit from Keith’s. Lance and Corrinne are still in pajamas, hair messy and disheveled, with the latter still asleep and being carried in Keith’s arms.

Pidge makes direct eye contact with the two of them. Time freezes in the hallway.

“I want you guys to cover my next week of dishwashing duty.” she says. Lance scowls and Keith protests.

“But--”

“A _week_.”

Keith stomps toward Lance’s room, carrying Corrinne away. Lance glares daggers at Pidge.

“You know blackmail is real, real low for a _Defender of the Universe_.” he says, tsking and shaking his head. Pidge stares at him flatly.

“I’ll make it two weeks--”

“Okay, one week it is _seeya Pidge_!” he waves, ducking into his room.

Pidge snickers to herself. Like everyone didn’t already know.

 

/

 

It’s been an entire week since Corrinne was first found in the castle.

A week that had started out tense, awkward and unbearable, and ended up with mass games of patty-cake in the common area. If Lance ever dares to say that it’s boring being a Paladin, he’s a _liar_. The evolution he’s seen over the past week is almost phenomenal. He never would have thought that a six year old intruder could bring them all closer.

(He never would have thought that a six year old could somehow rope him into the same bed as Keith every night, _either,_ but that’s a thing that happened too.)

Corrinne is sitting on Keith’s lap as he wrangles her hair into a ponytail while Lance looks through Altean movies like he has any idea what they’re about. How’s he supposed to know what’s child-appropriate when he can’t even read the titles?

As Lance is pondering whether or not he should ask Coran for help, Corrinne hums.

“Um, wanna know something funny? One time Alek tried to put food goo in the movie player and got in _so much trouble_.” she giggles at her own memory as Lance and Keith look at each other, frowning.

“... Who’s Alek?” Keith asks, because in the week she’s been here he’s never heard her talk about _anyone_ else. She tilts her head slightly at the question, short ponytail swaying with the movement.

It’s incredibly cute. Lance thinks that Keith did an _excellent_ job.

“Um… My brother.” she answers. Lance blinks, abandoning the Altean movies for the moment.

“You have a brother?” as if swallowing the fact that he had _one_ future kid with Keith wasn’t enough, now he has _two_. She nods. “Wait, why didn’t you mention this before?”

She shrugs. “‘Cause… He’s not here?”

Well. It’s hard to argue with that logic.

“He’s a big crybaby,” she says, rolling her eyes, “And he always talks about how cool he is. He isn’t cool though, ‘cause um, one time I watched him get a papercut and start crying.”

Keith did a very poor job of trying to hide his snicker. “Oh, wow. That sounds _familiar_.”

Corrinne tips her head back to look at Keith from his lap. They give each other matching knowing smiles.

“Um, first off, I resent that. Secondly, maybe you should be a little nicer to your brother,” he says, approaching them. He stands in front of them and crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow.  
“I _am_ nice,” Corrinne insists. Keith gives out another chuckle.

Lance fake-glares at him.

“Keith, you’re a bad parent. What do you think, Cora?”

She shakes her head, smiling. Lance pretends to be shocked, placing a hand over his chest.

“What? You’re taking his side? I can’t believe it, betrayed by my own…”

He spins around on his heel and, dramatically, falls backward onto both Corrinne and Keith.

The reaction is instant. Corrinne screeches “ _no_!” and tries to scramble away, to no avail. Keith wheezes as he’s crushed under both the weight of Corrinne and Lance, completely pinned down.

“Oof-- _Jesus_ , Lance--” he complains, but his words are drowned out by Corrinne’s laughter as she tries to squirm her way out from the pile. Lance shifts a little more weight onto her, and she squeals.

“What have I ever done to deserve to be so, so-- _Foresaken_!” he says, heaving out a dramatic sigh. Corrinne laughs some more, still wiggling around between the Keith and Lance sandwich.

Hunk chooses right then to walk into the room.

“Hey guys, we just got back from that planet--” he cuts himself off as he takes in the scene. Corrinne waves at him, barely visible under Lance’s jacket. “Aw. Having a bonding dog-pile?”

“I’m dying.” is Keith’s response.

“Rest in pieces.” Lance says.

Finally Keith manages to sit up, pushing the other two off of him. Corrinne rolls to the side, giggling when she sees Lance, who’s pretending to be dead.

“You guys are so cute,” Hunk comments, still standing in the entryway. Keith goes red, watching as Corrinne experimentally pokes Lance’s “dead” body. He comes back to life, grabbing each side of his jacket and enveloping her into it as she yells and laughs.

“So how’d the trip go,” Keith starts, trying to be as casual as possible to will the pink in his face away. Hunk gives him a thumbs-up.

“Oh, went awesome! As it turns out, that planet is now like some kind of massive trading post, so we got almost everything we need in one trip! Guess that Altean data is a _little_ out of date. Big surprise there. Anyway, we’re going to cut down the estimated time by like, half.” Hunk switches his attention to Corrinne, who’s peeking out at him from under Lance’s jacket. “That means we should be able to get _you_ back home in a week. Maybe even less.”

She gives him a huge smile.

(And Lance would never admit it--not out loud, at least--but there’s a deep sinking feeling when he realizes she’ll be gone soon, and honestly?

Lance will miss her.)

 

/

 

It’s a couple days later, and Corrinne’s asleep on the couch.

Lance takes his jacket off and lays it over her, because there isn’t a blanket nearby so it’s the closest thing around. He steps back and looks at her, smiling playing at his lips.

Pidge and Hunk found the final piece they were looking for on a planet they had stopped by earlier. All that was left was putting the thing together.

Allura, Shiro, and Coran were glad to be able to get back to Voltron business. Hunk and Pidge were happy they were able to piece together the advanced instructions left for them. Corrinne herself was happy to be able to get back to her family.

( _Her real family_ , Lance reminds himself. She might call him _Papa_ , but she probably wasn’t even _born_ yet.)

He hears footsteps approaching, and turns his head to look behind him. Keith walks up, silently, pausing beside him and looking down at Corrinne.

Keith. The only person that he didn’t know how they felt about her departure was _Keith_.

“Are you going to miss her?” Keith asks, voice just barely above a whisper. Neither of them want to wake her. “I talked to Pidge earlier. She said to expect about three more days.”

“Yeah,” Lance replies. They aren’t looking at each other, just at her. “Yeah, I am.”

“She can’t stay here.” Keith replies, matter-of-fact. Lance knows this. He sighs.

“I hope the future is more stable,” he says. “Earth isn’t destroyed, or taken over, or anything at least. She said we go there on vacation.”

They stand there in silence for a moment.

“Let’s take them to Disney World. I’ve never been.” Keith says. Lance looks at him in surprise.

“Yeah? Well after we save the universe, we’ll be heroes. I bet we’ll get free admission into any park we wanted. We could visit all the Disney resorts.” he nudges Keith, getting him to smile.

“We can have a movie night and watch actual Earth movies.” Keith says. Lance laughs.  
“Oh, _hell_ yes.”

There’s another pause.

“I’ll miss her too.” Keith’s voice is even quieter than it was before. “I had a lot of fun while she was here. Even if she hated us in the beginning.”

“I think she was probably just freaked out. Imagine seeing your parents all young, before you were even born? I’d probably avoid them too.” he chuckles. “Pidge told me she thought she was going to get in trouble. Maybe she was avoiding us because of that.”

“Maybe,” Keith agrees.

Their hands brush each other.

And Lance doesn’t know who does it first-- _if_ either of them did it first, maybe it was a mutual thing--but their fingers intertwine.

Then it’s just them, holding hands with nobody else around, nobody else but their sleeping _someday_ daughter.

 

/

 

It’s happening tomorrow. Hunk and Pidge confirmed earlier that it was all ready to go. They were only waiting an extra day for Lance and Keith’s sakes.

“You doing okay?” Keith asks, in the dark. They’re laying in Lance’s bed this time, Corrinne asleep between them. Lance nods.

“I will be,” he answers, honestly. “What about you?”

“Yeah.” Keith replies.

There’s silence for a moment.

“Can I make a confession?” Lance asks. Keith nods. “I’ve been having an easier time sleeping since… This.” he makes a hand-gesture to all three of them.

Keith nods again.

“... Me too.” he says. Lance’s heart jumps into his throat.

“Would you mind if we kept doing this?” he asks. His voice is even softer than it was before. “Even after she leaves.”

Keith chews the bottom of his lip, and Lance goes to backtrack. “I mean, if it’s weird we don’t--”

“No.” Keith cuts him off. “No. I want to. It… Helps me, too.”

Lance smiles, his bright wide smile, teeth visible in the darkness. “Thanks, Keith.”

 

/

 

Pidge runs a hand through her hair.

“I wish we could test it,” she says outloud to the group, “But this thing is one-way only. When Corrinne goes, it goes with her.”

It’s not a big, hulking time machine like Lance expects. It’s smaller, built for someone exactly Corrinne’s size. Made for her. Lance’s mouth feels dry.

“You aren’t sure it’ll work?” he asks, gripping Corrinne’s hand a little bit tighter. “That’s not exactly comforting, Pidge.”

Keith is on the opposite side of Corrinne, holding her other hand. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes narrow. Pidge sighs.

“I didn’t _say_ that, first of all.” she states, crossing her arms in front of her. “And I was just following instructions, so if you’re going to yell at anyone yell at future me.”

“I can’t yell at future you, Pidge, duh.” Lance says. Pidge shrugs.

“So then you can’t yell at me either. Hunk, fire it up?” she looks over at him as he gives her a thumbs up, before turning back toward the group. “You guys have about five minutes to say your goodbyes.”

Lance and Keith let go of her hands and take a step back as Allura approaches first.

“You’re a very smart, beautiful girl, Corrinne, and I had a lot of fun with you these last two weeks.” she pulls her in for a hug, and Lance thinks he might see her tear up for a minute. “I can’t wait to see you again someday."

“Thank you, ‘Lura. Um, do you wanna know a secret?”

Allura smiles slightly in confusion as Corrinne leans into her ears and whispers something. Lance has no idea what it is, but when she pulls away Allura is about as red as Keith’s lion.

“O-Oh.” she says, looking shocked. “I… Thank… You. For telling me that.” she clears her throat as she stands up. Corrinne nods.  
“You’re welcome. I just don’t know how they get it out of your belly!”

If it’s even possible, Allura flushes _even more_. All of the Paladins stare at her, eyebrows raised.

“Ah, um, Shiro! Why don’t you go next.”

He sends her a confused look, but obliges nonetheless. Bending down to Corrinne’s level, Shiro grins.

“It was nice to meet you, Corrinne. It’s no wonder you’re so awesome, with two dads like that.” he looks up and gives Keith and Lance a wink. They both flush. “Stay outta trouble, okay?”

Corrinne throws her arms around his neck. “Okay, Uncle Shiro. You’ll see me again someday!”

“Yeah, I will.” he smiles at her and stands up.

Coran is already standing behind him, waiting. Shiro steps aside.

“You know, I think they named you after me!” he says. She gives him a secretive smile. “Well, either that or that’s a funny coincidence.” he winks.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Corrinne. I’ve never gotten to see an Earthling child this close-up before, and I’m glad that they’re just as enjoyable to be around as they are when they get older.” he bends down and gives her a brief hug. “I’m sure someday you’ll be an excellent member of the team.”

“Bye, Coran.” she says. He nods.  
“Goodbye, Corrinne.”

Pidge walks over and ruffles her hair, messing it all up. Corrinne giggles as she attempts to soothe it down again. Pidge bends down.

“I know Shiro said to stay outta trouble, but you have to keep these two out of trouble too.” she looks directly up at Keith and Lance as she says it. Lance sticks his tongue out at her. “See what I mean?”

Corrinne giggles. “Um, I’ll do my best.”

“Heck yeah you will.” she puts her hand up for a high-five, which Corrinne eagerly gives her. Pidge stands back up and waves Hunk over.

Hunk looks at Lance and Keith. “We’ve only got a couple minutes left, so I’ll make it quick.”

He turns toward Corrinne-- and promptly picks her up and squeezes her.

“Uncle Hunk! I’m _dying_!” she complains, squirming in his grasp. He lets her go, dropping her back to her feet. She takes a deep breath.

“Tell future me that past me says he owes you ice-cream. _Real_ ice-cream.” he clarifies. Corrinne’s eyes sparkle. “Gonna miss you, kid.”

“See you soon, Uncle Hunk.” she says.

And then it’s just Lance and Keith.

They nod at each other, and then crouch down at the same time in front of her. She runs into their arms as they hold them out.

“Hey, Cora,” Lance says when she pulls back. He’s trying his hardest to keep his voice level. Don’t cry in front of the kid, _don’t cry in front of the kid_. “You tell future me that we got the video, and I am _very_ pleased with how well I’ve aged.”

Keith glares at him, before turning his attention back to her. “Tell Alek we said hi.”

She nods.

“Tell future Pidge and Hunk thanks, too.” Lance says. “For the instructions, and for also making the invention in the first place.” he pinches her cheek. “Never would have met you without it.”

She squirms away, crinkling up her nose. Keith chuckles.

“Hey. We’re gonna miss you.”

She goes in for another hug.

“Thirty more seconds!” Hunk calls out. Lance feels his stomach drop. He swallows back the lump in his throat as he holds her tighter. Finally, she pulls away to give each of them a kiss on the cheek.

“Love you Papa. Love you Daddy.” she says, grinning brightly. They stand up, holding her hands.

“Fifteen seconds.” Hunk announces. They walk toward the machine.

“Love you too.” Lance says. Keith kisses the top of her forehead. They release her hands to let her go, and she reaches out a fist toward Lance just before she steps into the contraption.

A fistbump.

Lance nearly bursts out into tears right then and there. Instead, he gently presses his fist to hers and gives her a blurry wink.

She waves at everyone else, too, stepping into the machine.

“Bye!” she says. Pidge instructs Keith and Lance to take a step back. They do.

For a moment, nothing happens. One second she’s still there, waving at everyone, and then the next--

She’s gone, machine and all.

 

/

/

/

 

Lance was sort of a wreck for a couple days afterward. _Immediately_ afterward, he had sobbed into Hunk’s shirt for at least an hour.

He was doing better now, though. After all, they had a _universe_ to save.

Allura calls Lance and Keith together about a week after Corrinne leaves. She smiles when she sees them both, and Lance realizes that this isn’t about how he was totally messing around with his blaster the other day and might have shot a hole through one of them castle walls. _Good_.

“I got another transmission today,” she starts, “and I thought you two might want to see it.”

Before they can ask any questions, she starts the playback.

It’s Corrinne, and another kid Lance doesn’t know that looks a lot like her. She smiles at the camera.

“Hi, past Papa and Daddy. Um, Pidge said we should make this video to let you know I’m okay. So, um, I’m okay!” she waves. The kid next to her waves too.

“Hi!” he says, voice bright. Corrinne looks at him.

“This is Alek.” she says, and oh. Duh. Lance can’t believe he didn’t make that connection sooner. “He’s annoying.”

“ _I’m_ not annoying,” Alek shoots back. He looks into the camera, posing, resting his chin on his hand. “I’m… _The best_.”

Lance gapes just as Keith busts out laughing. Even Allura can’t help a small giggle. The video continues, Corrinne making a very Keith face and rolling her eyes.

“Um, I hope you remembered the Hanky-Panky clapping game we played so that um, someday we can play it together again! Pidge said that this video can’t be very long, so I’m gonna end here.”

But before she switch the video off, a familiar face appears from off-screen.

“What are you two doing? Pidge told you not to mess with her stuff,” he warns. He especially looks at Corrinne when he says this. She shrinks down a little bit.

“Um, but Pidge said we could! We’re making a video to send to Papa and you in the past!” she says. Keith frowns, and then looks up at the camera.

“Oh.” a thoughtful pause. “Well… Then, thank you. For getting her back home.”

And then he winks.

Future Keith _winks_.

“Daddy!” Alek shouts, alarmed, “What’s wrong with your eye!”

“What? Nothing’s wrong with my--”

The video cuts off just before he can finish. They stand there, the three of them, in silence for a moment.

It distinctly reminds Lance of the very same thing happening a few weeks ago.

“That’s all.” Allura says, being the first to speak up. “Feel free to tell the others she made it back safely, if you want. I just thought you two might appreciate seeing the video.”

They nod and think her, leaving the room together. Keith turns to head the opposite way--probably toward the training deck, judging by direction--but Lance stops him by grabbing his arm.

“Wha--”

Keith doesn’t get to finish his question because Lance pins him against the wall and presses their lips together. The words die in his throat, as he melts into the kiss.

After a few more moments, Lance pulls back, breathing heavily. “Let’s go make twins.”

Keith blinks at him, bewildered, before something goes off in his mind. He scowls.

“Lance, for the last time, they’re _adopted_ \--!”

 


	2. to stop awhile with you

 

Both Cora and Alek slept in their own beds the entire night through.

The realization comes to Lance as he cracks open an eye and rolls over, realizing he doesn’t need to be careful of crushing any small bodies or getting punched in the face on accident.

(Alek could be a... _Fitful_ sleeper, sometimes.)

And God, is it _nice_ to be able to wake up and lean over to kiss Keith’s face without having two six-year-olds between them. It’s a miracle they even all fit on the bed together still. That is seriously, _seriously_ one habit that they’re going to have to stop soon.

“Hey,” he whispers, as the corner of Keith’s lips twitch upward at the kiss. “Hey, wake up, _hottie_.”

Without opening his eyes, Keith lets out a light chuckle and puts his hand directly over Lance’s face. He makes a little contemplative noise, moving it to his cheek.

“You need’a shave.”

His words are still thick with sleep. Lance sighs dramatically.

“ _Good morning_ to you too. I give a compliment, and you give a demand.” he flops backward onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “So _typical_.”

His words are teasing, and Keith can hear the smile in his voice even with closed eyes. He tosses his arm out, flopping it over Lance’s face, and gives out a loud yawn.

Lance bites him.

“Ow!” Keith snaps, pulling his arm back toward him. He sits up, finally opening his eyes just to shoot a glare at Lance. “Don’t _bite_ me! And you wonder where Cora gets it from...”

“Hey, she hasn’t bitten anyone in like a _year_.” Lance pouts. “And she _could_ have learned that from someone else.”

“Yeah, sure.” Keith leans up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and stretching. Lance follows, and Keith looks past him at their clock. “... Huh.”

“Hm?” Lance questions, arms raised above his head as his spine pops. Stuff like that is why mornings make Keith feel _old_. He points at the clock.

“Cora normally wakes us up by now,” he says, crossing his arms in front of him. Lance follows his gaze, tipping his head at the time.

“... Weird.” he says. “Maybe she decided to sleep in today.”

Keith chews his lip, fully awake now.

“... Maybe,” he says, but doesn’t sound fully convinced. Lance leans in, bumping their foreheads together in a comforting gesture.

“I’m sure she’s,” he pauses for a moment to yawn. “Just fine. Wanna take advantage of this and hop in the shower together?”

Keith crinkles his nose. “Sure, after you brush your teeth, _morning breath_.”

/

Surprisingly, Alek is already up and in the kitchen when they make their way there. He’s sitting in front of a bowl of food goo, looking like he’s about to pass out and slump over into it at any second. Hunk is there, too, though that’s not nearly as surprising.

(And despite how much Lance still misses Earth, he doesn’t mind the trips out as much as he thought he would. It’s nice to have the whole team together, again-- And sure, maybe he hadn’t known he was signing up for a lifetime thing when he first got into the blue lion--but he went to the Garrison to explore space, and... Some passions never do change.)

Lance walks up behind Alek, ruffles his hair, and watches as Alek blinks groggily in response. He doesn’t even bother looking up.

“Hunk, my main man. What is up.”

“‘Sup Lance, Keith.” he nods to them, getting his own helping of food. He pauses for a moment, scanning the room with a strange look on his face. “Cora’s not with you?”

“... No?” Lance answers, “Thought she’d be in here. Alek, is Cora still asleep?”

Alek shakes his head, pushing another spoonful into his mouth. “Fhe wafn’t there when I woke up,” he says, spitting little bits of green goo over the counter. Keith makes a face--normally that’s a behavior worth a quick “ _Gross, don’t talk with your mouth full,_ ” but there are more concerning matters on hand.

The three adults in the room go quiet as Alek, blissfully unaware of the epiphany happening, chows down on his green breakfast.

The silence is finally broken as Hunk whispers a short, “Oh, no,” and darts off toward the machinery room-- Lance and Keith only a few paces behind him.

/

Pidge calls it “ _The Sleeping Beauty Effect_ ”: the idea that they can go out of their way while making the machine to keep it safe from Cora, knowing what the future entails, but it’s bound to happen regardless.

“You can try and destroy every single spindle in the nation, but she’s still going to prick her finger. It’s unavoidable,” she’d said. “At least we’ve always been prepared for the possibility. _Inevitable_ possibility, that is, since we kind of _already knew_.”

In all honesty, Hunk and Pidge hadn’t even touched the device for months. It’d been so far out of mind, they hadn’t even realized Cora _knew_ about the machine at all.

That, however, is not much consolation to Lance and Keith.

“How fast can we get her back?” Keith asks, straight to the point as ever. Pidge chews her lip, pieces of hair falling out of her ponytail.

“That entirely depends on how competent past Hunk and myself are. But if I remember correctly wasn’t it like… A week?” she shrugs, and then frowns at the looks on both Keith and Lance’s faces. “I mean, look at it this way. Cora probably wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t traveled back in time. So, all we can do, is trust in our past selves to keep the loop going.”

“Pidge, I’m gonna level with you for a second. I wouldn’t trust my past self with a watermelon that had a face drawn on it, much less a 6 year old.” Lance says. And again, the only thing Pidge can do is shrug.

“Well, you did it once, so you must be able to do it again.”

/

“Cora’s gone?” Alek asks, when Keith and Lance both sit him down to break the news. He looks…

Confused.

“Where’d Cora go? Why didn’t _I_ get to go?”

“It’s complicated,” Keith says, rubbing at the back of his head. “We’ll explain it better someday. For now, just know that she should be back in about a week.”

Alek looks thoughtful for a moment. And then:

“Okay.”

Lance blinks in surprise. “O...kay?” the doubt in his voice is obvious as his eyebrows furrow. “That’s it?”

Alek nods, picking up his tablet from the floor. “Yeah. I don’t have to share for a whole week. Not _even_ the room between Papa and Dad on the bed.”

They share a concerned glance, but-- neither of them have the heart to start enforcing the _sleep-in-your-own-bed_ rule right then, anyway.

/

It doesn’t really occur to either of them, at the time, that a six-year-old that’s been partly raised in space might not have the most _firm_ grasp on how time passes.

The door to their room opens exactly when Lance guesses it will, just as they’re starting to doze off. It had been a stressful enough day, and creating that message to send off--not only to Allura and their past-selves, but for _Cora_ to see too--had been an exhausting, _and_ emotionally draining, end.

Alek comes in, baby blanket held tightly in his hands, and crawls onto their bed without a word. Lance looks at Keith from the other side of the bed, who just shrugs.

“Tired already, little man?” Lance asks, even though it’s right about the normal time for Alek to start getting sleepy anyway. Normally, he’s more of a fighter though--reinforcing a bedtime had never seemed like so much of a challenge until shortly after the twins turned six and Alek decided he was “too old” for anything like that.

 _Kids_.

Alek takes his spot smack in the middle, and comfortably snuggles into pillows and blankets. “I’m gonna get lots of sleep and be beautiful.” he states, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Keith has to clap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. “Cora can’t even wake me up in the morning, so I can even _sleep in_.”

“At least _somebody’s_ finding the silver lining.” Lance says. Alek pulls the covers over the top of his head and hums.

It’s a peaceful next few minutes, so Keith and Lance both start a little when he pops his head back out again. The look on their faces doesn’t seem to bother him.

“Is Cora gonna be back tomorrow?”

Keith frowns. His eyes flicker up to meet Lance’s--who just shrugs helplessly. “Cora will be back in a week, Alek.”

“Oh, okay.” he says.

And then he speaks up again, a few minutes later:

“So will she be back _after_ tomorrow?”

Keith shifts up to get a better look at Alek’s face. “No, that’s only two--Alek, do you know how many days are in a week?”

“Nope!”

Alek’s cheerful reply cuts through the the heavy atmosphere Lance and Keith had created, and it makes Lance _marvel_ at how damn lucky he really is to have a kid like that. He shoots Keith an amused stare. Keith blinks back at him, before looking down at Alek again.

“Look,” Keith starts, holding out his hands: 5 fingers out on one, two on the other. “A week is seven days. So she’s still going to be gone for a couple more days.”

Alek holds up his hands to mirror Keith’s, and then folds two of his fingers down. “So not tomorrow or the day after, but the day after the day after… the…?”

At some point his words had gone faster than he could put his fingers down, and Alek was looking at his own hands in confusion. Keith grabbed his son’s palms and spread Alek’s fingers out again, counting them off.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. A week.” he taps each individual appendage before holding up his own hands again, seven fingers out. “Seven days is a week. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah!” he nods, and then pauses thoughtfully. “So Cora isn’t gonna be back for a long time?”

“A week isn’t that long,” Keith responds, even though he’s pretty sure it’s going to be the longest week of his life. Lance taps the back of Alek’s head with a grin, drawing his attention to his other dad.

“Aw, do you miss Cora? Is that why you’re asking so many questions?”

Alek crinkles his nose up immediately. “... No,” he says, not meeting Lance’s eyes. Lance sighs and scoops him into his arms, squeezing him blissfully as Alek struggles out of his grasp.

“You’re such a bad liar. I love it. Please always stay a bad liar.” Lance murmurs into the top of Alek’s hair.

Finally squirming out of Lance’s arms, Alek shuffles back under the covers and sticks his head into the pillow. “‘M not a bad liar!”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Lance says, failing to control his grin. Keith rolls his eyes. “Going to bed now? For real this time?”

“ _Super_ forreal.” Alek replies, rolling onto his side. “Goodnight Papa, goodnight Dad.”

“‘Night, Alek,” they reply, and move to get themselves comfortable.

Lance and Keith are finally just drifting off again, when a little, muffled voice comes from under the covers:

“So, um, how many _TV shows_ is a week?”

/

“Hey, there you two are,” Pidge says as she approaches the back of the couch, where Keith and Lance are both bent over a book. “I got the message sent, so now it’s just a matter of time. All in their ballpark, now.” she leans in closer. “Watcha lookin’ at?”

Lance tilts the book in his lap toward her. “Old pictures. See, I _knew_ keeping this album would be nice someday.” he elbows Keith slightly, who scowls at him. Lance flips back a few pages and points to a picture.

“Remember this?” he asks, glancing up at Pidge. She squints and leans over, dipping between the two of them to get a better look.

And of _course_ she remembers this. How could someone forget the first time they held a baby, and then the baby promptly threw up on them? She’s cradling it kind of like--like someone who doesn’t know what to do with a baby, she guesses. Maybe like it’s a dangerous weapon.

A _poop-bomb._ Fairly accurate observation.

Honestly, she never was a big baby person. She’s just glad the baby phase is over with the twins-- Too bad there’s about to be _another_ new arrival.

“I love the look on your face,” Keith laughs. “You look like you aren’t sure if you should smile or toss her out the window.”

His voice is joking, but she glares at him anyway. “Your child vomited on me like _two seconds_ after this picture was taken, so my apprehension is totally justifiable.” she straightens herself up and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “You know you guys are just torturing yourselves, looking at these. Right?”

“I don’t know what you mean. These sort of situations are _exactly_ what albums are made for.” Lance replies. Keith gives him a _look_ , eyebrows raised.

“I don’t think very many other people have time-travelling children.”

“You know what I mean,” he replies, waving a hand in the air. “Besides, it’s fun. I can’t tell who’s changed more: all of us, or just the twins.”

“Definitely you two.” Pidge says, grin on her face. “Anyway, I have to go talk to Hunk about something. Don’t get too sappy and start crying on the couch.”

Lance twists around in the seat, sticking his tongue out at her as she walks away. “I’ll get as sappy as I want, Pidge! My daughter is _missing_!”

Keith grits his teeth.

“Didn’t we start looking at this to take our minds _off_ of that?”

Lance blinks at him, and then nods. “Oh, yeah, right. Well, maybe not the smartest of ideas, but it’s fun at least.” he moves a few pages forward, back to where they were before Pidge interrupted. “Look, this one’s from the beach.”

Keith quirks a smile at the photo. “I like how you can only see my head sticking out from the sand. Kind of morbid.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Lance jokes, “What we should have done was made a little tombstone to go with it, too. Now _that_ would have made for a good photo.”

Keith picks out a different one on the page. “I dunno, I think this one’s probably the best.”

And, honestly, Lance would have to agree. A picture that he had _intended_ to be a selfie with his son, but ended up with Keith photobombing, Cora on his back, and Alek taking up the entire bottom-left of the picture by being entirely too close to the camera. You could actually almost see straight up his nose.

And still, it’s probably one of the few where they’re all in the picture, smiling, and all looking in the same direction.

“And _then_ the after-math,” Lance says, flipping the page and pointing to a rather angry and red looking Keith. Lance laughs when Keith huffs and tries to turn the page again.

“That was _painful_ ,” he complains, like he hasn’t been shot by Galra soldiers or nearly had limbs sliced off during battle. Lance winks.

“Yeah, I know. You made me rub aloe vera gel on you for a _straight week_ afterward.”

And that does it. Nearly as red as he is in the picture, Keith shuts the album and shoves it onto Lance’s lap. “I’m going to the training deck,” he says, like Lance can’t _already_ guess that. He gives Keith a smirk and a small wave as he stomps away.

/

“Alek, stop that.”

Keith frowns at his son as he pushes around the contents of his dinner on his plate, occasionally shoveling it over the edge and dropping it onto the table. Hunk had actually cooked a real meal today, and here Alek was, treating it like the most tasteless food goo. “You’re making a mess.”

At the reprimanding tone in his voice, Alek looks up and pouts. “But I’m not hungry,” he complains, putting the spoon down. Keith raises an eyebrow.

“Then you don’t have to eat it. Just don’t play with it.”

Alek rests his elbow on the dining table, squishing his cheek against his palm with a sigh. Keith’s eyes dart from him to Lance, sitting across the table-- he doesn’t catch his eye, but he does look just as concerned with their son’s weird behavior. The rest of the Paladins sit quietly, watching the interaction, but Keith’s more worried with the fact that his _usually_ ravenous son hasn’t even so much as _touched_ his food.

“Hey, buddy,” Lance starts, “If you’re done you can go off and play. We’ll clean up the plate.”

Alek kicks his legs idly under the table for a moment, before stilling completely. He shakes his head. “Don’t feel so good.”

Keith frowns again. “What’s wrong?”

Their son chews his bottom lip, like he isn’t sure how to answer. “Um.” he starts, and Lance tilts his head and starts to lean across the table.

“Hey, Keith. Don’t you think he looks a little… Pale?”

Moving to brush Alek’s bangs out of the way so he could get a better look, Keith tilts his head. “I--”

He doesn’t get to finish that sentence, because Alek promptly throws up _right onto his lap_.

“Oh, _seriously?_ ” Pidge complains, from the other end of the table. “There goes _my_ appetite.”

/

  
“He’ll be fine.” Allura tells them, a little less than an hour later. “He’s got a bit of a fever, so I’m guessing it’s some sort of stomach bug. As long as he keeps hydrated, he should be able to fight whatever virus he has off fine.”

Lance runs his hands through his hair for what must be the millionth time. Nervous tick. “We can’t just-- put him in the healing pods? I know they aren’t made for kids, but--”

“Lance, please.” Allura interrupts, and she still manages to look intimidating _despite_ being eight months pregnant. Or maybe it helps. “I know you’re stressed, but _you_ know it’s important for him to be able to fight this off on his own for his immune system to develop.” she lowers her voice, just a notch. “We’ve talked about this before.”

Lance risks a glance toward Keith. He’s covering up his mouth with his hand, and Lance honestly isn’t sure that he’s ever seen him look _this_ on edge. He opens his mouth to say something, but Keith shakes his head.

“You can’t be fucking serious,” he snaps, and in a moment of pure deliriousness Lance thinks to himself ‘ _that’s one for the swear jar!_ ’. Keith continues, “He’s sick enough he’s throwing up, we have a way to make him feel better--and you want him to just _suffer through it_?”

Lance can see this conversation escalating before it ever even happens. Keith was already on edge enough, and _everyone_ has been walking on thin-ice with Allura for about a month. He can’t really blame her--she looks she’s trying to smuggle a watermelon out of a supermarket, that can’t be _comfortable_ \--but all he can seem to do is watch as she levels Keith with an icy glare that he hasn’t seen since the beginning days of Voltron, when they _all_ struggled to get along.

“I’d _recommend_ you control your misguided anger. I’m not explaining again, you both already know the risks involved with having a weak immune system and landing on foreign planets.” she says. Her words are slow and calm, but Lance can sense the storm beneath them.

He readies himself to grab Keith and drag him away, before this confrontation gets any worse. But instead of snapping back in true Keith style, he squints and stares at Allura for a few, hard seconds, and then--

Keith turns around, and leaves.

The door slides closed behind him, and Allura raises an eyebrow.

“... Well. He’s certainly grown up a lot,” she notes, like it’s the first time she’s ever seen him walk away from a conflict. Turning back toward Alek, asleep on their bed, she brushes a few black strands out of his face.

“I should probably leave now. Can’t be in here for too long. I’ll have Coran bring him some more medicine when he needs it. Make sure that he stays hydrated.”

Lance nods, numbly, as she brushes past him and into the hallway. The door closes behind her as she spots Keith, leaning against the wall a few feet away from the door.

He has his hands pressed to his face, and it would be more than easy for her to just brush by him and not say a thing. But instead, she pauses in front of him, still facing forward.

“Keith,” she starts, her voice softer than it had been just a few seconds ago. “I just… Want you to know, that we’re here for you. _Both_ you and Lance. So even if you feel like this is something you have to deal with alone… We’re all here.”

He doesn’t respond. When she finally walks away, her footsteps fading out, he brings his hands down from his face and sighs.

“... _That_ was dramatic,” Lance comments from the doorway. Keith turns his head toward him and scowls. “What’s that look for? … Anyway, she’s got a point, you know. I think. Probably.”

“Doesn’t she always,” he responds, moving back toward the door. He bumps his forehead against Lance’s, their noses brushing. Lance grins at him. “I’m sorry I lost my cool.”

“Don’t apologize to _me_ ,” Lance says, shrugging. “Go say that to her. Though, she sounded pretty proud that you actually walked out instead of arguing with her more.”

“It was hard.”

Lance laughs.

“Yeah, I can tell. Wanna go make sure our son doesn’t wake up and go vomit in any other areas in the castle?”

Keith laces their fingers together. They stand there like that, in the doorway for a few more seconds. “I mean, only _your_ son would find some way to get into trouble with two people standing less than a few feet away, _and_ with a fever.”

Lance lets out a low whistle. “Only _my_ son? Whoa, _awkward…_ Who’s gonna go tell him he actually only has one dad, and that this other man is really just a total stranger…”

“Oh my god, shut up.”

/

Coran really does try his very, _very_ best to get Alek to take the medicine.

“It’s just one spoonful, honest! And then you don’t even have to look at it again. I’ll take the entire bottle completely away! Like, _whoosh_! Magic. Gone.”

Alek shakes his head like he’s being offered a plate of brussel sprouts. _Poisoned_ brussel sprouts. “I don’t _want_ it!” he says, burrowing down into the covers as if they’re the last line of defense between him and the _putrid_ liquid. Coran frowns.

“But your tiny little body will get a fever all over again, and then all that water you drank will mean nothing!” Coran says, as if that means anything to a six year old. Unsurprisingly, Alek still doesn’t look convinced. Keith sighs, annoyed.

“Alek, stop being a brat. If you don’t take the medicine you can’t have your tablet back.”

Alek makes some sort of strangled noise that he undoubtedly picked up from Lance. “But-!” he starts, before turning to the side and focusing his attention to Lance. “Papa?”

“Don’t ‘Papa’ _me_ ,” Lance says, frowning. “You heard your dad! You gotta take it, kiddo.”

And so, with a groan, he begrudgingly swallows down the the medicine.

“See! That wasn’t so awful, now, was it?”

“The worst thing I’ve _ever done_.” Alek replies, completely deadpan. Coran pats his head, unphased.

“Ah, to be so youthful and full of resistant energy even when you’re sick,” he says, wistfully, before putting the bottle of medicine away as promised. “I’ll be back later, young man! Maybe see if I can get Hunk to change the flavor of this…”

Coran mumbles the last part, mostly to himself and under his breath, as he exits the room. Keith puts his hand on Alek’s forehead.

“Feeling any better?”

“No.” Alek says, still scowling from the medicine. Keith raises an eyebrow.

“Do you really mean that, or are you just over exaggerating because you’re grumpy?”

Alek tilts his head back and squints at Keith. “What’s over….exazerate?”

“It’s what your Papa does all the time.”

“ _Hey_!”

Alek blinks blankly, eyes flicking between the two of them, before he settles back down into the pillows. “I wanna go back to sleep.”

“Then do it, sunshine,” Lance says, placing a kiss on the top of Alek’s head. “Sleep is good for you. It’ll make you feel better.”

“ _That’s_ what you said about the medicine.”

“And we’re totally right about both of those things.” Lance asserts.

“I’m gonna throw up again.” Alek informs them. Scrambling off the bed, with their combined effort Keith and Lance just barely manage to get Alek to the bathroom before he ruins their sheets.

/

Keith and Lance are up _so much_ the entire night that it’s almost like when Alek and Cora were infants, except with only one this time. They’d stopped trying to give him anything to settle his stomach hours ago-- he throws it up less than thirty minutes later, anyway-- and settled on taking turns helping him to the bathroom whenever he woke up.

Lance is just starting to doze off again when he feels Alek stir next to him, and in an instant he’s wide awake again. Alek leans forward on the bed, resting his chin on his palm. Lance follows suit.

“Again?” he asks, pushing back Alek’s bangs and cringing at the amount of sweat clinging to his hair. It’s sticking to the back of his neck where it touches his skin, and he just feels clammy all over. Alek shakes his head.

“Well, it’s probably good you woke up anyway,” he sighs, reaching toward the nightstand for the cup of water. “Here, take this. Drink it _slowly_.”

He glances over at Keith as Alek takes the cup, unsurprised to find him awake and watching Alek. After this many times, they were both practically trained to wake up when their son did.

There’s a sniffling noise as Alek pulls the cup away from his mouth.

“... Alek?” Lance questions when he hears it again, and tilts his son’s chin up to find his eyes swimming. Lance’s concern skyrockets through the roof as a tear rolls down his cheek. “Alek, what-- what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Keith leans up at that, blinking in groggy confusion at Lance. Lance turns his attention back to their son. “Alek, talk to me.”

He sniffles.

“Wh-When’s Cora coming back?” he asks, and Lance sighs as he wipes away a tear with his thumb, brushing it gently across his cheek. “Is Cora okay?”

“Cora’s okay.” Lance affirms, clicking his tongue. If he keeps crying, he’s just going to get _more_ dehydrated. “She’ll be back soon. But, uh, why don’t you focus on getting better so you can play when she does get back?”

“Is she dead?” he asks, and it takes all of Lance’s willpower not to grab onto Alek in that moment and never let him go. He shakes his head.

“She’s not dead. She’ll be back, Alek, I promise.” he glances at Keith, who’s looking just as shocked as he feels at their son’s last question. “Right, Keith?”

“R-Right,” Keith says, caught off guard by his sudden inclusion in the conversation. “Cora’s fine.”

Alek doesn’t say anything, just breathes unevenly, and Lance is afraid for a second that he’s going to throw up again without warning. But instead, he wipes his eyes and looks between the both of them.

“... I want a big hug.” he says, and Lance doesn’t have to be asked twice. He wraps his arms around Alek, and Keith follows suit, pulling the both of them closer into his own embrace.

“We miss Cora too,” Keith finally says, after a few seconds of silence. “But we love you just as much.”

Alek nods, and slowly, starts to drift off once more.

/

Alek basically sleeps for the entire rest of the day, and for that, Lance is _more_ than grateful. Once the nausea subsided he just seemed tired, and whatever had infected him had wiped all of that youthful energy right out of him. Aside from waking up a few times to eat-- _light_ meals, thanks Hunk-- he’s out like a light.

“... At least we don’t have to worry about them both being sick at the same time,” Keith offers. Lance blinks at him.

When the next morning finally comes, Alek wakes up before Keith and Lance, wedged comfortably between them.

Worrying his lip, Alek’s brown eyes bounce between his parents. He can feel his stomach grumbling, but-- they really, _really_ look peaceful, so...

Carefully, he wiggles his way out from between them and silently tiptoes out of the room.

The castle lights illuminate the hallway and he brushes his hand against the walls, following the glow toward the kitchen. Maybe there’s some leftover soup in there, or maybe--

“And what’s a gremlin doing lurking around in the dark?”

Alek nearly jumps an entire foot at the voice, whipping around with wide-eyes to see Pidge leaning against the opposite wall. He gapes.

“Um--”

“It’s not morning yet,” she says, casting her eyes back down to her computer in her lap. “Do your parents know you’re up?”

He scowls and crosses his arms in front of himself.

“Do your parents know _you’re_ up?” he asks, tilting his head for extra sass. Pidge looks like she’s desperately trying not to laugh as he switches poses and settles his hands onto his hips, leaning forward.

“Go back to sleep, Alek.”

He sighs, dramatically, and takes a step closer to her. Her eyes move back toward him, but she doesn’t lift her head up. “But I’m _hungry_.”

She almost, almost makes a dad joke there. But there are already enough fathers aboard the castle, and she has _some_ dignity she has to keep.

Just a little. Even if it’s with a six year old.

“Aw, man, that sucks. Well, I guess you’ll just have to be hungry...”

She doesn’t really mean it--she knows that the sooner she helps him get something to eat and get back into the bed, the sooner she can return to her work. But Alek has _always_ been fun to mess with, and besides, she hasn’t seen him in a few days.

Predictably, Alek reacts by flopping his arms down to his sides in an exaggerated display, complete with an overdramatic sigh, and she just _knows_ which dad Alek takes after more. Before he can open his mouth to complain ( _probably_ loudly, maybe even loud enough to wake everyone else up,) she pushes her laptop away and stands.

“To the kitchen, young space cadet!”  
  


He salutes her, and then lets out an excited _Yay_!, as _all_ professionally trained space pilots do, of course.

/

Alek thinks he’s being just as sneaky-quiet as when he left as he tiptoes back into the room, carefully watching his own steps. But he notices his dad’s watchful eyes just as he hikes one leg up onto the bed, ready to climb back in.

Alek freezes.

Keith blinks at him, blearily.

“... Feeling better?” he asks, shifting so he can reach over and help Alek back onto the bed. Alek takes his hand to climb over him, settling himself back between the two. Lance doesn’t even stir.

“Mhmm.” Alek answers, voice low. Keith shifts again, this time moving so he’s facing Alek. He presses his forehead to his sons and hums.

“You’re _sweaty_ ,” Alek complains, making Keith’s lips briefly quirk into a smile. He shrugs and nuzzles closer.

“And you threw up on my shoes, so I guess we’re even.”

“You’re _always_ sweaty, dad. You need, like, _face-deodorant_.”

At that, a loud snort is heard from the other occupant of the bed, who’s back is toward both of them. Looks like _someone_ wasn’t so soundly asleep after all.

“Oh, _very_ funny,” Keith says, trying his best to look annoyed. A half-smile manages to fight it’s way onto his face anyway. “Well, if I’m so _sweaty_ and _gross_ , why don’t you go sleep in your own bed?”

Alek opens his mouth like he’s going to protest, before pausing to look thoughtful. “If Papa laughed, does that mean he has to leave too?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Hey!” Lance doesn’t quite roll over, but does turn his head to glare at them. “Me and Alek, we’re two against one here. We could throw _you_ out of the bed.”

“How ‘bout,” Alek starts before Keith can throw back another retort, pausing to yawn in the middle of his sentence, “We all just act like grown-ups and go back to sleep.”

There’s a complete beat of silence.

“Wow.” Lance says. “We both got a maturity lecture from a six year old...”

Keith has to hide a snicker into his pillow, because Alek is already halfway asleep.

/

If you had told Allura, back when she had first met the Paladins--before they could even properly form Voltron, when she only knew them well enough to describe Lance as “ _perhaps, flirtatious_ ,” and Keith as “ _maybe a bit too impulsive_ ,”-- if _anyone_ had told her that the two of them would end up being quite possibly the strongest bond in the team, she would have laughed them out of the room, wiping away tears and thanking them for the much-needed laugh.

So, of course, she can only imagine what her past-self’s reaction would be to finding out that Keith and Lance don’t just get along, they have a _family_.

Lance and Keith, being the first in their group to settle down-- and without the background knowledge of the years gone by, she supposes it _would_ be surprising to hear. But if you take a step back, a moment to evaluate the past, it’s less of a shocking plot twist and more of puzzle where everything slotted into place as it was meant to.

Nothing happens without cause, after all.

And she’s _seen_ , firsthand, the way time can change everything. The annihilation of her people, her _home_ , to the natural way the group has bonded, and more importantly, the evolution of the way that two paladins simply _look at each other_.

(There’s also no easier way to observe change than to watch a child grow.)

Allura’s lips twitch into a smile as the doors to the room she’s in slide open, and Alek comes trotting in.

“Miss Allura,” he says, and it makes her grin even wider because no one else calls her that. It’s like their exclusive little thing, something only a personality like his could come up with. Not even Cora calls her by that. “Papa told me you wanted to talk!”

“I did,” she reaffirms. “Last time I saw you you were sick! I trust that you’re all better now?”

“I trust that too.” he says, shrugging. She laughs and waves him closer. “Is the baby coming soon? I wanna hold it.”

“Soon,” Allura nods, and runs a hand absentmindedly over her stomach. “And I promise you’ll get to hold it. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.”

He frowns as he moves closer, giving her an uncertain look. “Am I in trouble?”

“Of course not. I just wanted to ask: how have your Papa and Dad been?”

“Um.” Alek says, and glances around uncertainly, almost like he’s looking for someone else to give him an answer. But there’s nobody else besides the two of them in this room-- Allura’s heart sinks when she realizes he’s looking for the reassurance of Cora. She always did answer the hard questions when they were together.

( _And_ , if they were ever in trouble together, she was always the mastermind to get them out. _That_ kid was going to be a tricky teen.)

“They’re… Dads?” Alek finally answers. It’s… Well, it’s not a _wrong_ answer. Allura has to give him that.

“I mean, how are they doing since Cora’s been gone.” she says, softly. Alek’s face lights up in understanding, and then turns back thoughtful.

“Oh. Um, I think they’re sad. But they probably don’t want me to know.”

 _Perceptive_. Allura nods. Even if they were trying to hide it, she’s sure she wasn’t the only one who noticed the dark circles under Lance’s eyes and the way Keith has become almost completely silent around the group.

“That’s what I thought,” she hums. “I think they miss her very much. But, if you’d like to help out, I bet I know a way we can get their minds off of it…”

/

Alek _insists_ on sleeping in his own bed that night.

“You don’t… _Have_ to.” Lance says, with a confused frown. And, if he was being honest with himself, he really didn’t want him to. Of course he knew that Alek wasn’t going anywhere--but it would be so much easier to confirm he was still there, with them, when he could just reach out and touch--

“I’m a big kid, Papa.” Alek speaks, with more determination than Lance had probably ever seen in his son’s eyes. “Big kids sleep in their own bed.”

“... I guess.” Lance relents, but not without a backward glance to Keith. Keith gives him a half-hearted shrug.

“Let him do what he wants.” is the only thing the red Paladin offers. Lance opens his mouth to protest, but Alek interrupts.

“Okay then, I’m going to bed.”

Both Lance and Keith give their son a stare like he’s sprouted another head.

“It’s-- It’s like 3 hours earlier than your bedtime.” Lance says, eyebrow raised so high it’s almost disappeared behind his bangs “Did the real Alek disappear too, and now we have some sort of android fake one?”

“No.” Alek answers back, the humor lost on him. “I’m just going to bed early because I’m going to bed early.”  
  


“What kind of logic…” Keith mumbles, but before he can even finish the sentence Alek has turned on his heel and exits the room. The door closes with a swoosh, and the two of them are left alone in the room, completely dumbfounded.

“... Suspicious?”

“ _Very_.”

/

“You know, I was pretty surprised when Allura asked me to help do this, but I’m even more surprised you got up this early,” Hunk comments as Alek hands him a vegetable. His voice is teasing. “Don’t you like sleeping in?”

“I like…” Alek starts, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Being warm and in bed. But Miss Allura is really smart, so I’ll help her out.”

Hunk smiles down at the stove he’s cooking on. “You’re a pretty good kid.”

“I know.” Alek beams. Hunk laughs.

“And _there’s_ the cute kid ego.” he turns away from the food, leaning down to ruffle Alek’s hair. Smoothly, Alek dodges out of the way and sticks his tongue out. Hunk grins. “I’m nearly done in here for now, and I think it’s almost time for your dads to wake up.”

Alek suddenly levels him a serious look. “I understand the next part of my mission.”

Hunk nods back, sternly. “I know you won’t mess up.”

With a firm salute, Alek turns swiftly on his heel and marches out of the kitchen.

(Hunk has to stifle his laughter; at least he’s taking his job _seriously_.)

/

Lance nearly trips over his son when he exits the room, who’s sitting down at the entrance to their door like he had been standing there for awhile, and then got too tired.

(As a matter of fact, he has an odd suspicion that’s _exactly_ what happened.)

“... Alek,” he starts, “You’re up early.”

“Yep.” his son answers back, with no further explanation. Lance squints at him.

“... Is it comfortable there?”

“Nope.” _well_ , he can’t ever say Alek’s been a good liar. At least he isn’t even trying now. Lance opens his mouth to respond, but Alek hops to his feet to glance around Lance’s legs. “Dad?”

Keith looks up from where he’s still seated on the bed, fully clothed and tying his hair up. He’s got a rubber band between his teeth, dark hair gathered into his hands. “Hm?”

“Oh. Hi. Um, Allura told me to tell you guys you have to go to the training deck.”

Keith raises an eyebrow, speaking around the hair tie in his mouth. “Now?”

“Uh, no way _now_. More like _after_ breakfast.” Lance responds. He places his hands on Alek’s shoulders, steering him out of the room. “You’ve gotta be hungry too, right, little ma--”

“No! She said, now. It’s an _emergency_.” Alek stresses the last word, trying his very best to keep a straight face. This only further confuses Lance.

“Alek. If it had been an emergency, the princess would’ve--”

Lance doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Alek suddenly darts around him again, nabbing the _brand new_ bottle of face cream that his Papa had literally _just_ bought. Lance makes an indignant noise as Alek bolts back out of the room again, sticking his tongue out.

“If you ever wanna see it again, you’ll have to catch me!”

Alek’s footsteps resound down the hall as he takes off, and Keith observes that Lance looks like his eyes might bug out of his head. He glances toward Keith, back toward the hallway, and then at Keith again.

“He-- _He--_!”

And then, with a final, exasperated noise, Lance shoots down the hall after him.

/

The training deck isn’t too far away from their bedroom, but it has Lance cursing every last bit of his son’s crazy energy. By far, Lance _should_ have the upper-hand--longer legs and all, you know--but damn, he didn’t realize just how _fast_ Alek was.

A set of footsteps behind him tells him Keith is chasing after the both of them. Or maybe just following. He _probably_ thinks it’s funny. Lance grits his teeth.

Finally, Alek skids to a stop just in front of the training room doors. He spins the bottle in his hand, until the cap is facing downward, and tightens his grip.

“Follow me in, _or the bottle gets it_.”

Lance gasps.

“Wh--” Where did Alek learn to _hold hostages_? “No more action movies for you!”

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Alek walks backward into the room. Lance gapes.

Keith, who had finally caught up just to see that last scene, crosses his arms in front of his chest. “... I think this is a set-up.”

Lance gives him a long look. “A set-up? Keith, this is your son, _not an alien in cahoots with the galra_. And he has my expensive lavender-scented stress-relief facial moisturizer.” he gestures to his face, waving his hand up and down. “Do you like this, Keith? Do you like this face? Because this face is going to be full of wrinkles and it’ll be _gross_ and _nasty_ if I don’t have my stress relieving moisturizer.”

Keith averts his gaze for a moment. “I’ll… Think you’re handsome no matter what.”

Lance blinks a few times, before covering his face and groaning. “ _Noo_ , that’s not what you’re supposed to say. Stop being a good husband for like, _five_ seconds?” he sighs, removing his hands from his face and straightening up. “Come on. We have a thieving gremlin to apprehend. I’ll bet you five bucks Pidge put him up to this.”

“I’m not taking you on that bet.” Keith replies, biting down on his tongue to keep from laughing. Together, they enter the training room. The door closes behind them just as they see Alek, holding out the bottle, completely unscathed.

“My moisturizer!” Lance shouts, bounding forward to grab it out of his son’s hands. Alek puts up no resistance, handing the bottle to him. Keith watches.

“Alek,” Lance starts, “If you don’t have a good explanation for this, you’re grounded for _the rest of your life_.”

“ _Not_ the rest of your life.” Keith adds.

“Fine, until you’re _eighteen years old_.”

“ _Not_ twelve years, either.”

“Okay, _jeez_. Well, you’re not going to get _any_ of Hunk’s dessert the next time he makes some.”

“Fairer.” Keith agrees.

Alek stares up at them, mischief in his eyes, until suddenly all the lights go off around them.

/

“The door’s totally jammed shut.” Keith confirms, after a few moments of struggling with it. Lance squints to see him in the total darkness, keeping one hand firmly on Alek’s head so he doesn’t try and squirm away.

“So we’re trapped in here?”

“Oh _no_ ,” Alek says, sounding very unconcerned and suspiciously rehearsed. Lance squints down at where he can only assume his son is.

“Did you plan this?”

“No.” Alek says, in his terribly obvious lying voice. Keith grunts a few feet from the two of them, still fiddling with the door.

“Alek, _why_.”

“It’s a secret!” he shouts, a bit louder than he intended. In his surprise, Lance releases his hold and Alek manages to wriggle away. He shuffles backward a few paces. “But, I have a… Fun…. Idea to pass the time!”

The pauses in between words make Lance raise his eyebrows. It’s almost like Alek is struggling to remember something. “An idea.”

“Yeah!” Alek says, again a little bit too loud. “Um, we should remi….n… Um. Like, think back about fun memories.”

“ _What_?” Keith asks. Alek hums.

“Tell me about Earth, _please_?”

“You’ve lived on Earth longer than here.” Lance answers. “You’re telling me you _don’t remember_ it?”

“.... I remember the time Cora climbed all the way to the top of the monkey bars and cried because she couldn’t get down.” Alek replies. Keith laughs.

“Really? Because the way _I_ remember it, that was _you_.”

“Nuh-uh.” Alek shakes his head in the darkness, despite the fact that no one can see it. “That was Cora.”

“Oh, right.” Lance adds, “And Cora was _also_ the one that got lost in a Toys R Us and we didn’t find until thirty minutes later, crying alone in the section with the Furbys.”

“She _told_ me that, that puppies that moved around were there! Robot puppies...” Alek whines, “and then she told me to stay there while she looked for you guys and, and she _never came back_!”

Keith has to stifle a laugh behind the palm of his hand. He’s completely given up on the door now, just sitting on the ground near it. “Alek, shh. It’s okay. We aren’t making fun of you.”

Alek lets out a huff. There’s a moment of silence again, before Lance speaks up.

“Hey, Alek. Do you miss Earth?”

He doesn’t answer for a moment, and Lance is almost afraid he’s fallen asleep or something-- when the silence is interrupted again.

“Sometimes,” Alek says, “But being in space, ‘n seeing other planets, isn’t something that other kids get to do. So that’s cool too.”

“Oh,” Lance says. “Well… We’ll get to go back to Earth sometime again, once all the resistance dies down, so you’ll get to see it soon.”

Alek shrugs. “I like having two homes.”

Lance is silent as he digests that--does Cora consider the castle to be a second home, too?-- but he doesn’t have to think about it silently for long. Lights brighten up the room, and all three of them groan as the brightness hurts their retinas. They didn’t even hear the door open.

“Oh, sorry. Probably should have knocked and warned you.” Shiro says from the doorway, and Keith squints at him.

“Why did the lights go off?”

“Power issue.” Shiro assures him, and winks at Alek. Alek winks back. Lance looks back and forth between the two of them suspiciously.

“For the entire castle?”

“Uh,” Shiro says, and then rubs the back of his head. “Anyway, breakfast is almost ready so I figured I’d come get you guys! Although. It is probably more like. Lunch now.”

“ _Lunch_?” Lance asks, in utter disbelief. “How long were we _in there_ for?”

“More like, how long did you sleep in for before you came here,” Shiro states. “Anyway, everyone’s already there, so let’s head on out.”

Alek hops to his feet. “Last one there is a stinky, rotten, moldy egg!”

/

Shiro wasn’t lying: everyone _really was there_.

(Well, almost everyone. Minus one cute 6 year old.)

“ _Whoa_ ,” Lance says as he enters the dining hall, because that’s all he can think to say. There’s practically a full-out feast here, complete with _nothing_ but Earth dishes.

(He doesn’t miss the days when they couldn’t get any supplies from Earth. That _really_ sucked.)

“... What’s going on?” Keith asks, in understandable confusion, because ever since the two of them had woken up the day had been nothing but chaotic and weird. Allura grins as she helps Hunk set out more food and _oh hell yes_ Hunk had been the one cooking. Lance’s mouth is watering already.

“It’s a group effort.” she explains. “Shiro was the one who remembered the date, Pidge took care of the power, Hunk did the cooking, and Coran and I made the plans. But, honestly, the person who did the most work is standing right next to you.”

Alek beams from his place next to his parents. “ _Thank_ you, Miss Allura.”

Lance blinks in confusion. “Oh, uh, cool-- and not that I’m not, you know, _totally_ starving and _one-thousand percent_ impressed here, but… _What_ date?”

Shiro laughs. “I figured you wouldn’t remember. I know months are hard to keep track of up here, but I thought maybe you two would figure it out.”

“Figure what out,” Keith says, and Lance is relieved to find out he’s not the only confused one here. Pidge spins her laptop around, finger hovering over a date on the calendar displayed.

“ _This_ date.”

It takes Lance and Keith a few seconds of staring at it and frowning, but they both come to the same conclusion at the same time.

“It’s--!”

“Our wedding anniversary.” Keith finishes, placing a hand on his forehead. “How did we _forget_ our wedding anniversary?”

“Ah, well, I wouldn’t beat yourselves up too much over it.” Coran replies, cheerfully. “You two have really been stressed out and preoccupied with other things. So that’s where we’re here for, after all!”

Lance can feel his composure breaking down. Doing his best to keep it together--to keep his emotions in check, his voice can’t help but waver when he says, “You guys…. Are the _absolute best_.”

“Aw shucks.” Hunk says, grinning. “You know what I think this calls for? _A group hug_.”

Alek is lifted up into Keith’s arms before he’s lost in the pile, as the group gathers and wraps around the three of them. Lance had completely given up on trying to hold his tears back, and instead blubbers into Hunk’s shoulder.

“Okay guys,” Shiro starts, “Happy Anniversary on three, and then food. One, two, three--”

“ _Happy Anniversary_!”

Keith grins as Lance sniffles, wiping away tears. He presses his forehead to Alek’s. “Hey. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” Alek said, scrunching his nose up. “I’m not still grounded, am I?”

“Nope.” Keith replies. He lowers his voice. “I actually thought it was kind of funny--”

“I heard that!” Lance replies. He leans in closer to the two of them. “But no, of course you aren’t grounded.”

“And I can have as much dessert as I want?” Alek asks, looking serious. Lance nods.

“I’ll even give you half of mine.”

“ _Yessss_.”

Pidge clears her throat, interrupting the brief family moment. “Alright, I’m digging in because I’m _starving_. Who’s with me?”

They all cheer again.

A few minutes later, after everyone is settled in, Lance is helping Alek put chicken onto his plate when there’s shuffling from behind him. He doesn’t think much of it-- Allura’s mice do make some pretty weird noises at times-- but then the rest of the table goes deadly silent as a familiar voice speaks out:

“Um, I’m hungry too…”

All eyes are fixed on the space just behind the family of three. Lance whips around so fast the chicken almost goes flying off the plate. But before he can even get a word out, Alek has already launched himself out of his chair.

“Cora!” he shrieks, nearly knocking her over when he goes in to hug her. She looks shocked, before finally giving out a giggle. Lance and Keith are just behind Alek, already bent down to her level.

Keith pulls the both of them into a hug, and Lance follows, wrapping his arms around as much of his family as he possibly can. Shyly, Cora looks up at them.

“Um…. Am I in trouble?”

Keith gapes at her for a second. Lance is taken aback too, but quickly finds his voice again.

“Well-- Nobody’s in trouble today.” he finally decides. Keith nods.

“But please don’t _ever_ go anywhere like that again.”

“Okay.” she agrees, and kisses all of them on the cheek, except for Alek, who she licks. He screams.

“NO!” he shrieks, trying to scramble away. Unfortunately, he’s trapped between two adults. Cora scowls.

“That’s how puppies say hi!”

“I’m not a puppy!”

“Cora--” Lance warns, but she smiles at him and he can’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“We can pretend to be puppies, because um, puppies don’t use forks and spoons.” she says, turning her attention back to Alek. He squints in doubt, before an idea occurs to him.

“They eat with their faces!”

She nods ecstatically.

“No one’s eating with their face.” Keith says, evidently shattering their hopes and dreams by the looks he receives. “You can be puppies, but only... Well trained puppies. That eat using silverware.”

Cora gives him a long stare.

“... Fine.” she finally says, nodding. Moving toward the table, she takes her seat and starts greeting everyone there. Alek follows suit, taking his spot next to hers.

“Keith,” Lance starts, watching the two of them talk and pile food onto their plates. Keith tips his head.

“Hm?”

“I’m really glad we made twins.”

Lance’s shit eating grin is not worthy of a response, Keith decides, and instead he shoves him lightly and goes to sit down next to his family.

“Hey! _Love you too_.” he huffs. Keith grins at him, and Cora perks up.

“I love you too!”

“Me too!” Alek yells. Keith keeps smiling, flickering his gaze between the three of them.

“Too bad I win, because I love you all _most_.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Not fair!”

“You didn’t say _times infinity_ , so it doesn’t count.”

The others watch them bicker back and forth from other sides of the table, Allura’s hand wrapped tightly around Shiro’s underneath the table. She smiles at Pidge and Hunk.

“Thank you for the correct estimation on when she’d be back, too.”

Pidge shrugs. “Well, we couldn’t get it down to a science. And it was mostly Hunk.”

“Oh, I just tried to remember what time of day we sent her back. I figured it probably worked that way. Glad I was right!”

They look back at the family of four, who had now quieted down enough to scarf down some food.

Shiro smiles, giving Allura’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s good to have everyone back again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been in EDITING AND WRITING HELL since basically the last chapter was posted.
> 
> (so it's probably not as good and i apologize for that ;; but i hope alek is still a cute character)
> 
> i never mentioned this, but the title (and now the chapter titles) are from the song Madrigal by Rush.
> 
> thank you guys again for reading this!! i think i'm really in love with my own klance children OCs (lol) so i might make this out into a fully-fledged series, or at least write more little snippets of their lives as they grow up.... who knows alfjasl. i'm just so flattered by all the attention this fic has gotten and I'M REALLY NOT WORTHY, I WAS JUST WRITING OUT MY KLANCE FANTASY haha!!
> 
> i love all of you so much. <3
> 
> edit as of 6/23/17:
> 
> i get a lot of questions regarding this fic, specifically what goes on in it and that's my fault for not being more clear! i dont dislike answering these things at all but not everyone wants to comment for clarification (or read through the comments for clarification), so here's a quick q&a:
> 
> Q: Are the twins mpreg?  
> A: nope! they're adopted, born on Earth. i plan on going into more detail with a few sequel/prequel fics later on, so i'll leave it vague for now!
> 
> Q: Was Allura the surrogate for the twins?  
> A: nope, her and Shiro have their own baby.
> 
> Q: What did Cora say to Allura before she left?  
> A: she told her she was pregnant :)

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i have spent a million years on this fic (ok, its been like a week and a half) because i was like "man, no one would want to read this???" but i just COULDNT get the idea out of my head. and then it turned into this monster.
> 
> and you know what? i could STILL write about it. maybe i even will. who knows. ;) i am such a sucker for my ships having kids and living happily ever after.... i could literally write an entire essay about their life together as a family probably.
> 
> (THANKS AGAIN TO TINA, IM SORRY I COULDNT USE KLINK AND KLANK AS NAMES BUT WE WILL FOREVER REMEMBER THE WORD GENERATOR THAT CAME UP WITH KLINK AND KLANK ALIEN SANCHEZ-KOGANE)
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr!](http://isabelmagnolia.co.vu) | [my twitter!](https://twitter.com/yordlecompstomp)


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